


Triptych

by pirlepet



Series: The Garden of Beasts [2]
Category: Fate/Prototype, Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Biting, Blow Jobs, Come Eating, Come Swallowing, Consent Issues, Cunnilingus, Deepthroating, F/M, Fondling, Foot Jobs, French Kissing, Hair-pulling, M/M, Nipple Licking, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Wall Sex, i just can't get away from that angst tag huh, the tiniest merlin cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-11-09 03:40:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17994176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pirlepet/pseuds/pirlepet
Summary: "Pleasures bring sweet delightAfter harsh painsPleasures bring sweet delightAfter great fear and fright."Or do they?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so. this is a direct sequel to _where the fever lies_. but not THE sequel. that's still nebulous at this point. so if you haven't read that, you might want to read it first because triptych picks up directly where wtfl leaves off. in fact, if i get the sequel rolling, the three fics here will eventually be chapters in that.
> 
> if you haven't read wtfl and want to start off with this anyway, i will mention that the consent issues tag is there for a reason. in wtfl, lucius tiberius forced ayaka and arthur to marry him, and while they're determined to make the best of things now, uhhhhhh.....yeah. as this piece should make abundantly clear. so if that's a problem for you, don't read.
> 
> funny thing is, i had this particular story in mind for a while. like, well before wtfl ended. so i figured, "oh this should be a quick write, right?" wrong. it fought me. it fought me so hard. the porn burnout continues to be real.
> 
> i was hoping to get this up for valentine's day, but the aforementioned fighting, and it would have been pretty bitter chocolate for that day. oh well.
> 
> the quote in the summary is from marie-catherine d'aulnoy's "the great green worm" from _wonder tales_ , ed. by marina warner, that particular story translated by a.s. byatt.
> 
> oh, and btw: I GOT HIM I GOT HIM I GOT HIM, he has forgiven me for all the shit i put him through and now his radiant presence graces my room with the light of a thousand suns. *weeps*

It was the Sword Emperor who greeted them as they came up the path, hand in nervous hand. Smiling and bowing to them, holding the door open wide. “Welcome home, sweetheart. Everything’s just as you left it, kept in perfect order for you.”

Ayaka’s hand clenched in Arthur’s. _The nerve of him. Standing there, grinning like a jackal, welcoming me back to my own home--_

 _Slowly. Softly._ His fingers moved in hers, sending comfort. _I know this is hard for you._

Lucius Tiberius aside, everything was...the same. Their slippers were waiting in the front entrance as if they’d simply left on a trip to the grocery store. Swallowing through the stone in her throat, Ayaka pulled off her shoes--her designer shoes, brought and provided by the Emperor--and slipped her feet into soft shabby cotton once more. Tears welled. She knelt to hide them, slowly and carefully placing the new shoes in the cupboard. _Maybe I can "accidentally" leave them behind._

“Should you be doing that?” Her voice was quietly normal. “Standing there armored in plain sight, I mean.” 

_Be at ease, Your Majesty,_ Aniketos’s calm voice said directly into her ear. _No one is currently observing us. Indeed, even if they were, I would be very surprised if there are more than a few--if any--mages living able to breech our shields and illusions. We are quite safe from prying eyes._

She jumped and nearly fell over the doorstep, Arthur’s quick hands the only thing between her and disaster. “Don’t do that!” she whispered fiercely once she’d caught her breath again. “I mean...it’s...”

He manifested with the shrill hiss she had learned to identify as a spirit entering or leaving the material plane. “My deepest apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, his eyes penitent behind his thick glasses. “I had forgotten that you are not yet used to our ways. I shall endeavor to be far more careful in the futu--”

“Save it. Business awaits.” Lucius Tiberius swept them inside, snapped his fingers. The living room bloomed suddenly with people, a cacophony of colors and languages. Roman soldiers, women and men, some in silks, some in homespun, some crowned. Smoke arced and drifted in a corner, a strange form that suggested some kind of demon. Her heart jumped. “Silence. All of you. Your Empress is choosing which possessions she’ll bring back to our base, and which will be stored away. Her words are as mine.” He touched her elbow, drew her forward. Eighty pairs of eyes fastened themselves to her. “Go ahead, Ayaka.”

She took a deep breath. Let go of Arthur’s hand, wiped her damp palms on fine wool. Wiped them again. “Good...morning. Um. I can pack my own things. Clothes, I mean. I don’t have much.” If only her tongue would stop stumbling over itself. “The only thing I really need help with is Garden. The doves need to be transported, and I want to bring some of the smaller plants and taking cuttings from the rest. Just...just in case. Does...is there anyone here who knows about plants?”

The Emperor laughed. Red crept slowly up her neck. “Of course, sweetheart. I have a whole swath of gardeners.” Another snap and a new group of men presented out of thin air, kneeling, caps in their hands. “You’ll be serving the Empress in her garden. Do as she tells you. Didius, you’re in charge of the birds.” 

More bows and they were gone, one second before her, the next second inside Garden. “ _Wait,_ tell them not to start until I’m there. They can take the birds, but--” 

Lucius Tiberius lifted his chin slightly and all movement inside Garden stopped. “Don’t worry, darling. They won't lift a finger until you arrive. Your word is law, after all.”

“Sure it is,” she muttered.

A gentle cough came from behind her, and she turned to find Njeri, the mage second in command, her dark hands folded respectfully before her. “With your permission, Your Majesty, Aniketos and I offer to pack and inventory your honored father’s workshop. Since, as you stated, you left everything as it was when he most unfortunately passed, there may be knowledge he left behind regarding the previous War that may prove of service to us.”

“Yes, and since we have yet to be able to do so, this would also be a fine opportunity for us to interview His Majesty about his experiences and especially--” Aniketos cleared his throat, “about the previous Servants.” He and Arthur exchanged a look, and Ayaka felt a secret passing in the air between them. “Is that acceptable, Your Majesty? It will be a productive way to pass the time as we wait for Her Majesty to finish her leave-taking.”

The look Arthur gave her was solemn, and slightly bashful. “Is that all right with you, Ayaka?”

“Of course,” she said, a shade too cheerful, too loud. “I have plants to dig and you have important information to share. I'll be fine. Njeri, Aniketos, you can pack up Pa-Father’s workshop. There’s a seal on the door, but I’m sure that won’t give you any trouble.”

“No indeed, as we have--begging Your Majesty’s pardon--already been inside.” Something must have changed in her face, for she continued gently: “We needed to be absolutely certain that the house had not been breached in any way, and as your...there were possible artifacts connected to the previous War inside, we felt it best to take no chances. I am sorry.”

“Don't worry about it,” she said softly, and raised up on tip-toe to kiss Arthur’s cheek. “Go ahead. I’ll get started in Garden.”

The place that had been made and left for her, and her alone. Her and Arthur's special place. Swarming with the Emperor’s men. She closed her eyes, a sudden weariness creeping through her body. _No. I don't have time for this._ Sighing, she straightened her shoulders and went, pushing away the sound of footsteps moving towards her father’s workshop. _I'm just going to think about Garden, and the plants. Nothing else._

“Wait a moment, Ayaka. There’s someone I want to introduce to you.”

Lucius Tiberius, waiting for her just inside Garden’s door, lounging against one of her favorite trees. Anger swelled inside her, burned the weariness away. “We’ve been so busy with the change in base and all, there’s been no time for proper presentations. That needs to change soon: my people deserve to meet their new Emperor and Empress and you two need to learn who’s serving you. In the meantime, though--” Taking her arm, he snapped his fingers, and a man appeared; taller than the Emperor, broad as two houses. A face like a slab of broken rock. “Behold: Junius Brutus. The head of my generals. On the incredibly rare occasions when I or Arthur can’t be with you, he will be.”

The man flung himself down before her, a shudder rocking the earth. “Augusta! I am your most humble servant! Please, order me as you see fit! Eternally, I am your creature!”

Ayaka took one step back, then another.

 _Calm down, darling. He looks menacing but he can only hold one thought at a time in that thick skull of his. Such as “completely eradicate the enemy.”_ The soft thunder of Lucius Tiberius’s laughter filled her head. _That’s to his--and our--advantage, though. Too dumb to betray and neither heaven nor earth will stray him from his appointed task until it’s completed. A good watchdog for you._

She swallowed. “...Yes,” she said, her eyes on the sunburned skin that gleamed through the dun-colored strands that blanketed the top of his head. “Um, why is he calling me--” Her tongue tripped on the foreign word “--Augusta, though?”

Junius Brutus’s head shot up, blue eyes wide. “Did I offend? If so, take my unworthy head as recompense!”

“No! It’s fine! You didn’t offend! Really!” A throbbing pain was beginning to grow behind her own eyes. “Um, if you don’t mind, you can help me dig plants and take cuttings--” 

“Augusta, I would fell an entire forest using only my teeth if you desired it!”

The Emperor’s shoulders were heaving with silent laughter. “Never change, o Junius Brutus, never change,” he murmured, then went off into another spasm. “Darling,” he said after he finally calmed down, “‘Augusta’ is a title for the Empress, that’s all. Same as my subjects calling me and Arthur ‘Augustus.’ ”

“Oh,” she said feebly, and he patted her arm.

“You’ll get used to it. To everything.” He grinned, then nudged the still-prostrate Junius Brutus with the toe of his boot. “General, I’m going to check on things, talk to some of the men on guard duty. I leave the Empress in your capable hands until I return.”

Junius Brutus sprang to his feet, causing another shockwave. “Yes, Divine One!”

 

Sunlight patched gold on green as they worked, the only sounds in Garden Junius Brutus’ noisy breathing and occasional questions, the soft scrape of trowels. None of the Emperor’s men spoke: even the doves had gone silent. “Shall I pot this one, Augusta?”

She nodded, and delicately, he placed the cutting in the soil, patting the earth down all around it with his thick, careful fingers. “And this?’

“Yes,” she said absently, concentrating on the tree before her. There was a small sore place in her chest, as if a cold finger had pressed down deeply into her heart. _I’m sorry,_ she thought, as she had every time she uprooted a plant, or precisely cut a tree. _I’m sorry, Mother. I’m trying to protect you, just as you protected me. I can’t--_

Movement flickered to the side. She turned.

The Sword Emperor came towards her, Florent in hand, black coat snapping in the wind, and she sprawled small and cold on the ground body roaring with pain grit in her face and dust between her teeth watching his grin flash through tears as death came towards her with crimson sword upraised--

_Ayaka?_

“Augusta?” Junius Brutus blared into her ear. “Are you well? You are so pale!”

Dirt. Her forehead touched bark. Fingers dug deep into the ground, warm earth. The pot had fallen off her lap, cuttings and soil scattered over her skirt. She blinked. Hand on her arm, leather and metal. A gently possesive hand. “Are you all right? Ayaka?” Rider’s face, very close to hers. “Ayaka?” Tension, concern. She looked at him through the damp screen of her hair, then rose and stumbled rapidly away. 

_Ayaka?_ Arthur again, thick with worry. _Are you all right?_

“I’m fine.” _I’m all right._ “It’s nothing. Absolutely nothing,” she called, not looking back. _Lucius Tiberius just...startled me, that’s all. I’m fine. Stay with the others._ Sweat poured down her back like a summer storm. “I’m going to get some water. Don’t--” 

Three steps into the kitchen and Lucius Tiberius materialized before her, waiting with folded arms. “--Follow me,” she finished, and glared at him.

 _Very well,_ Arthur replied, his voice tight with resignation. _But if he “startles” you again, I will not hesitate to come._

The Sword Emperor narrowed his own eyes back at her. “What’s going on, Ayaka?” he asked. “One minute you’re happily planting, and the next you’re white enough to rival the moon. What happened?”

“Nothing happened.” She pushed past him, found a glass. Turned on the tap. “I got a little dizzy, that’s all.” The cold water washed out the last of the imaginary dust, helped her swallow again. “Go back outside.”

He didn’t move. “Dizzy my ass. That was pure fear I felt from you just now. Did you forget that we’re one, darling? I can tell when you’re lying.” Fingers shrouded in smooth leather gripped her chin, turned her face to the Emperor’s. “Tell me what’s going on.” 

Blood thrummed in her head. “You really want to know? Fine. I was planting away, just like you said, and then I looked up, and saw you walking towards me.” A muscle jumped in her throat. She swallowed and swallowed again. Felt a dull coil of heat grow inside her, right in the center of her stomach. “I was kneeling and you were coming towards me, fully armored with your sword out, and all of a sudden I was lying on that filthy roof, crippled with pain because you’d just kicked me. You were coming for Arthur and for me, grinning and grinning, and I knew that we were going to die. And all I could do was watch.”

Lucius Tiberius’s lips moved silently over her last words. His face was very pale. “I...are you telling me that you’re still afraid of me?”

“When did I stop?” she said, her voice a dry croak, and pulled away from those clutching fingers to fill the cup again. 

“But...why?” he said, voice soft. “I thought that...we’d come to an understanding after the other night.” His voice grew stronger. “I thought that you were willing to trust me, let me be good to you. That you knew I would never hurt you again.”

The water eased the heat somewhat, made it easier to speak. “That’s the key, isn’t it? Again. Maybe my mind knows what you promised, but my memory doesn’t. All it knows is that you already hurt me once. And that’s never going to go away.” She stared into the glass, at a mote of dust floating in the remaining water. “The past doesn’t die just because you say it does, Lucius Tiberius. I think...that a part of me will always be flinching away every time you touch me. Every time I look up and see you standing over me. Every time you take Florent in hand. That’s the price of your eternity, Sword Emperor. And...I think that we’ll be paying it forever.”

A splatter of pain, from his mind to hers. “Ayaka--” 

She set the glass down in the sink. _I wonder if I’ll ever use it again._ If she left, or died, would the next occupants of the house find it waiting, the mark of her lips still on the rim? “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Go away. Do something useful for once. I’m going to pack.” 

Air shrilled behind her, but she didn’t turn around, taking the stairs to her room two at a time. The bathroom--she’d stop on the way back for her toothbrush, her plain drugstore soap, no-frills shampoo. No more smelling roses and honey every time she moved, another link in the chain binding them to the Emperor. Her little room, tucked into the end of the hall, white door shut. So quiet. _I wonder if I should also take Arthur’s clothes while I’m here._ She hesitated; then, feeling strangely shy, she turned and crossed the house to the spare room. Neat and sunny and smelling of him. _Arthur._ Shirt, pants, jacket. Boxers, and she blushed slightly as she took them up, tucked them between shirt and pants. _Don’t get embarrassed over something like that, dummy,_ she scolded herself. _He’s your husband!_

Shoes and socks. _I don’t have anything to put these in,_ she realized. _Or my own clothes either. I never needed luggage before._ Regret flared in her, a small black star; she’d never traveled anywhere, never spent a night outside her own home. _I couldn’t even go on the senior class trip because Garden and the birds couldn’t be left alone for long. And now..._

A dark spot appeared on Arthur’s shirt. She blinked, then quickly put his clothes down, made a neat pile outside the door. Swiped furiously at her eyes. _My gym bag,_ she thought. _I still have that._ She stopped in the bathroom for a tissue and cold water, dabbed at, and dried her eyes. Unlocked her door. _It should be in the clos--_

Clothing piled on the bed. Books pulled out of the bookcase, stacked on floor and nightstand, some opened. Drawers half out of her dresser, the underwear one clearly rifled, and Lucius Tiberius peering into her closet, dresses dangling from the crook of his arm.

_“What are you doing?”_

The Sword Emperor looked at her with sly innocence. “Helping you pack, lovely. Isn’t that useful?” Another dress slid into his hands and he studied it gravely, a grimace turning his mouth. “Though I’m not sure we shouldn’t just burn the lot and start over. Don’t you have anything pretty?”

“Shut up!” The gym bag was in the back corner, buried under her summer duvet. She shoved past his legs, knelt to drag it out. Landed on her one and only pair of heels. Biting her lip against the pain she extracted the bag and retreated to her bed, grabbing whatever her hands touched, filling the bag until the bed was empty.

Lucius Tiberius leaned against the wall, bright eyes following her every movement. One hand toyed with the hem of a cream wool skirt, pleating and pinching the fabric, folding it back, letting it spring free. “Please let me buy you better clothes.”

“No.” She took sweaters out of her dresser, pushed them down into the far corners of the bag. “I like my clothes.”

“They’re dowdy as hell, and unworthy of my Empress. And--”

“And I like them that way.” Ayaka yanked the dresses out of his arms, spread them over her bed. Began to fold them. The blue and white striped, the grey, the navy. A loose thread on the pale pink. She worked it free, smoothed the ruched fabric. _All of these dresses are...old,_ she thought. _I haven’t brought anything new since I graduated high school. Before I graduated high school. Well, there wasn’t much point, was there?_ She folded it, placed it with the others. Reached for the brown. _It’s not like I saw anyone or went anywhere after I left school. And...I thought I was going to die. Which..._

Hands on her shoulders. Leather, metal and mint. Her lips tightened, but her hands continued to move without pause. Folding and packing, the last of the dresses dull blue in her hands and Lucius Tiberius slipped both arms around her in a gentle embrace. 

“Sweetheart,” he whispered in her ear. Soft hot kisses over her cheek. Hands lightly stroking up and down her arms, tracing the very edge of her breasts. “Stop for a bit.”

Blood immediately sprang to her face “I knew it,” she muttered and yanked the zipper so hard it almost broke in her hands. “ _I knew it._ Two whole days without sex was too much for you, huh? Can’t you think of anything else?”

The Emperor took the bag from her hands, laid it on the ground. Guided her to sit, the mattress crinkling under her weight. Hands clasped hers, raised them to his lips, and then he was sinking down to kneel before her, his shin guards ringing dully upon the wooden floor.

Violet eyes looked into hers, soft as the flower. “The only thing on my mind right now,” he said, voice low, “is helping my wife.” A kiss on her clenched knuckles, the thin tender skin of her wrists. “You’re spinning with turmoil right now, darling. It’s running through me even with the wall you’ve put up. Let me make it better. Let me help you.”

Her heart quickened with anger, with the look in those truth-filled eyes. With desire, thin as a thread and sharp as a knife. “You call this _help?_ ”

Fingertips to his lips. The gentle heat of his mouth. “How else can I make you feel better? All you like about is me,” he whispered, “is the pleasure that I give you.” Slowly, his kisses covered her palms. “My wife, one with me. If you’re wounded, I bleed.” Hand curved to his cheek, cheek rubbed against her hand. A kiss, light as tears, on her lips. “I promised you. No more pain. Only pleasure.”

Ayaka opened her eyes through the kiss, held his. Amethysts with chips of obsidian at their center, solemn yet merry. Dark lashes, the straight bloody slashes of eyebrows under that mop of red hair. Her fingers moved, without thought or volition, traced the arc of his cheekbone, the pale smooth skin of his jaw. Skin soft against hers, a joy to touch. Freckles over his nose, tiny and faint--how could she have not noticed them before? Thumb on his lips, tender skin, the flick of his tongue. The soft pinch of heat between her legs. Frowning, she took her hand away, ran it over his eyebrow, and he nuzzled his face into her palm with a little moan.

“Let me be good to you,” he whispered. “Let me give you better memories to replace the painful ones.” 

Her traitorous heart beat faster. _Well, this **is** what you wanted. This is what you’re working towards,_ the calm little voice that waited in the dark of her mind whispered. _The Sword Emperor focusing on you instead of Arthur. This is what protecting him means. Go to it, Ayaka; he’s on his knees before you. You like that. Make him suffer for his sins. And if he does manage to chase the tears and pain away, so much the better._

_I...I..._

“You...you really think that you can just wipe that memory away? By having sex with me while you’re armored?” she said quietly and wound a lock of his hair around her finger. Slowly, she pulled his head back, until his armor could no longer shield his throat and he lay open to her, pale skin gleaming.

The Emperor moaned and looked up at her, his eyes very bright. “One bad experience, battered and broken by a thousand better ones.” A simple twist and he was free, hands cupping her face, lips soft against hers, tongue teasing, caressing. Tenderly, he captured her, sucked on her, pulled her deep inside him. Heat flooded her body, pooled and sank between her legs. Wet just from kissing, _hate him, hate him_. “Let me show you.”

“All right, _fi-fine_ ,” she whispered, hating the split in her voice. “But you won’t be...so lucky next time.”

One hand warm over hers, leaving the other free to roam. Grey cashmere crept upward, set her shivering. The pale skin of her belly, the soft curve of her ribs. Lucius Tiberius’s eyes, narrowed in delight. Her breasts, demure in white cotton. His eyes widened.

“What?” Ayaka asked, feeling a thump of amusement. “Did you really think I was going to wear that lacy red nonsense?”

Wounded eyes lifted to hers. “I picked them out specially,” he muttered, and pushed the fabric away with the tips of his fingers, as if it was filthy.

She leaned forward so he couldn’t see the smile trying to occupy her mouth. “Maybe later, if you’re good,” she said and pinched his ear.

Smooth leather cupped her breasts, squeezed gently. Harder, and she bit her lip. Fingers circled her nipples, stroking and tugging at them until the tips rose against his fingers and Ayaka shuddered, wound her fingers in his hair. Lucius Tiberius smiled at her, slow and wicked, then buried his face in her bare breasts, hot tongue stroking over every inch of her Master’s Degree.

Sweetness raced through her body, set her blood aflame. Ayaka bit back a whimper, pushed him away. Guided his mouth to her nipple instead. Lucius Tiberius made a soft _hmm_ , kissed her, sucked gently. Too gently. She wanted teeth, wanted his mouth between her legs. Wanted him to die.

The Emperor pulled away suddenly, touched her cheek. Laid his fingers over her heart. “I wish--”

“That I was your Master?” Words came hard.

He shook his head. “No, not that. You couldn’t handle the both of us, Arthur and I,” and the truth stabbed her, turned her face red with shame. “But every time he looks at you, he sees the bond between the two of you, burnt into your skin.” His tongue flicked over her nipple, circled it, caressed it. “I want that.” A note of wistfulness in his voice, nearly inaudible. “Some mark or sign carved into our bodies, shouting to the world that the three of us are forever one.” Gently, he worked her nipple between his teeth, bit down, and Ayaka cried out, pulled him more tightly against her, angling his head so his teeth could sink more deeply into her flesh. 

_What’s wrong with me?_ she thought, mind blank as new paper. _I don’t need to get all worked up over him just because I’m seducing him. Him under me, that’s what I want. Not the other way around._ “I--I...isn’t eternity enough? We don’t need more reminders that we’re stuck with you.” She twined her fingers more tightly into his hair, made it a leash for him as her foot slid downward. Found him under the quilted tunic, thicker than the pants he’d worn on their wedding night, and shoved into him. Lucius Tiberius groaned, long and ecstatic, and she forced his face into her breast to quiet him. Her heart beat hammer blows on her ribs. “Besides, you’re...you’re ours, Lucius Tiberius, much more than we’re yours and _I’m not going to let you forget it.”_

Teeth in her skin. _Darling, darling, darling._ Grinding into her foot, moaning like a whore into her breast as he arched and grew harder beneath her. _Yes, yes, fuck me, use me, make me yours--_

 _You already are,_ she said brutally, and pushed him over the edge. 

Warmth spread under her toes, between her own legs. Panting, the Emperor laid his head in her lap as she continued to caress him softly, rubbing him, tracing him, playing with his hair. His big hands stroked the outside of her thighs as he laid kisses on her skirt, over the place where her legs met, until she bucked a little and gave his hair a warning tug. “That was wonderful, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Thank you. But--” Sharp teeth gleamed suddenly and her entire body trembled on the hook of his smile. “You’re the one who’s supposed to be getting fucked, not me.”

One hand slipped under her skirt, caressing her hip, the curve of her rear. Both hands inside the waistband of her stockings, inside her underwear, sliding them down, spreading her thighs. Open for him. Gloved fingers slipped through her curls, gently pinched her nub. Tightened. She whimpered and the fingers slid away, ran softly up and down her folds. Thumb back on her nub, circling, the leather smooth when she wanted rough. Slow-burning pleasure instead of sharp, and she shifted irritably. A metal-clad knuckle pressed delicately against her entrance, sent a thrill of cold through her bones. Pushed in, just a little. Withdrew when she gasped.

Lucius Tiberius looked up at her with a heavy-eyed smile. “More?” His hand rose to his mouth, tongue dragging over his wet fingertips, greedily lapping up every drop.

Ayaka flushed and looked away from that knowing face. Focused instead on her fingers, tight in the Emperor’s hair. _Why am I such a coward? It’s not like I haven’t done this before. Why can’t I look at him?_ “Keep...keep going.”

“Still a little shy despite everything, hmm?” he murmured. “That’s fine. Why let the beast have all the fun? Mice should play too.” Cold metal spreading her wide under the Emperor’s eager, relentless gaze. Smiling, he studied her, holding her open, leaning in close, peering inside her. Licking his lips. The tickle of his breath, the flutter of his eyelashes against her folds. Burning embarrassment, split with pleasure. Wetness dripping slowly over his fingers. 

“So beautiful, pink and wet and _waiting_ for me. Waiting to be filled and fucked.” A teasing breath over her nub, fear and pleasure bursting through her brain, and she squirmed, furious at her lack of control. “I still owe you a good hard fucking, sweetheart. Don’t think that I’ve forgotten. Fucked until you can’t walk straight, o my heart’s delight, fucked until you _scream._ ” Cold slid inside her, moved languidly, soft, shallow thrusts. “Maybe not today, my darling, but soon, very soon.” Fire in her cheeks, ice in her veins, stinging, relentless pleasure-pain. “Fingers first, then my mouth.” Second in and a shudder rippled up her spine at the doubled cold, the thick stretch of his fingers. “Then...we’ll see, won’t we?”

The world shrank to those fingers, cold and smooth, metal kneading and tormenting the weak spot inside her, slowly, than faster, the edge of the plate pushed up against her and rubbed just so. Choking back moans, riding his fingers, clamping down on them, shoving him in deeper, hips moving to his sway and hating herself with each escaping whimper. _Don’t...don’t let him get to you...think about Arthur...think about Arthur..._

_Oh god, I hope he can’t tell that we’re doing this._

“My sweetheart still can’t let herself go without help, hmm?” the Emperor whispered, and pulled away abruptly, startling a groan from her. “How about...” Wet fingers curled around her hip and his mouth was on her, biting and sucking. Gently, his teeth took hold of her nub: gently, his tongue curled against it, stroking back and and forth. Teeth, hard enough to burn, working her, then lips, soothing away pain. _Sweet darling._ Sucking her folds, then her nub, teasing her with teeth and tongue and now fingers back again, but three this time, too much with the added bulk of his armor, just too much, filling her so completely and the softest little bite to her nub--

 _I don’t want to play too deeply here with armored hands, but..._ Cold at her other entrance, the pad of a finger, slick with her own wetness, caressing, pushing up just hard enough to break and Ayaka broke, gasping and sobbing as her husband groaned voluptuously and swallowed every drop.

All her senses dipped and sang, the room spinning. “We’ll break the bed if we fuck the normal way,” she thought she heard Lucius Tiberius say, and then she was in the air, his arms tight around her, his mouth at her breast. Panting, she grabbed at him, took refuge in the familiar feel of soft red hair underneath her hands. “Wha--” 

“Here.” Her legs hooked over the cold metal of his hip guards, pressed close to his sides. _I stabbed him here three days ago,_ she thought dizzily. Arms around his neck, gold-encrusted velvet scratching at her skin. “Ayaka.” His mouth claimed hers, hungry and sweet. Brought her back to herself. She kissed him back, caught and bit his tongue to make it clear who was in charge, tasted a faint hint of desperation. “Ayaka.” Fumbling at her waist, cloth pulled up and the thick hard length of him wanting entrance. Her back hit the wall, not hard though, with his arm there to shield her. Slowly, he pressed into her, every inch filled, stretching her past what even his fingers had demanded, hotter than Florent’s blade.

 _I forgot just how big he is,_ she thought, feeling him full inside her, muscles shaking with the effort of allowing him. _Enormous. Huge._ Lucius Tiberius groaned, kissed her ear. Asked anxiously if she was all right. “...Yes,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “But stop if I say so.”

“I will,” he whispered, and began to thrust, slow and smooth, rocking her hips with his. Hot, so very hot, piercing her, filling her past the brim. Stroking against her weak spot until it burned, her blood thickening like honey. Ayaka whimpered into his ear, bit the rim. The Emperor’s body jerked, his hips snapping up. A bloom of pain quickly snuffed by pleasure, her walls rubbed and caressed with each thrust. Outside, her nub fondled and pinched and teased until her body went lighter than air and heavier than death, and she buried her face in his throat to stifle her moans. More kisses, a dance of tongues, his cock twitching and pulsing with each twist of her body. _So good, so good, so **good** \--_

_Scream._ The thought leapt up unbidden. _I want him to scream._ She tightened her hold on him, pulled herself up carefully. Threw her arms around his shoulders and leaned into him, relaxed around his cock. Tightened. His breath hitched. Smiling, she braced her knees, pushed up again. The ridged metal of his hipguards bit into her skin but it was worth it to hear him gasp, worth the fire that was starting to flicker through her body, setting her alight.

“Tease. You cunning little...tease,” Lucius Tiberius whispered, and groaned into her ear. Nipped the lobe. “Keep...it up my darling, and you’ll be drowning in my seed before your orgasm even starts. And that’s...not what we want.”

“I don’t...care,” she gasped, rising again. “Because I know...you’ll make me come no matter what,” and at her words he shuddered, wrapped his arms around her, so tight she could barely breathe and thrust, harder, faster, so deep it hurt but so good. Darkness pooled in her eyes. She was sinking, every bone burning, losing everything to him again, _I won’t let you get away with this--_

Fumbling fingers yanked his collar aside, and Ayaka sank her teeth into his throat, good and deep, seeking blood. Felt it well over her tongue, just a drop, burning like the summer sun, glittering like champagne. Lucius Tiberius broke apart with a shout, fingers digging into her skin, seed hot as blood filling the cup of her body as Ayaka cried out with him, nerves sparking and snapping with magic.

 

“You feeling all right, lovely?” the Emperor asked after he’d finished her off with soft kisses, tongue gentle and relentless against her nub. “Not that Aniketos has ever failed me, but--” 

“I’m fine.”

“Sure? No dizziness, no faint feelings--” 

_“Yes.”_ Soft pearl light dappled her palm; she looked at the crystal a moment more, then tucked it back under her sweater. No light escaped the thick cashmere, but Arthur was going to catch her undressed sooner or later. _I’ve got to get stronger, make this unnecessary. Arthur doesn’t need a flashing reminder that Lucius Tiberius and I are having sex._ “I know my body, thanks.”

A softer note came into his voice. “Not sore?” 

Perturbed, she glanced down, but saw only red hair and hands busily cleaning her. “No, not really.” There were gouges on the inside of her knees, thick and smarting, but those could be healed. Inside--she shifted subtly, pretending to yawn. A burning ache and a sense of emptiness, both of which pierced her. 

He looked up at her, a brief flash of eyes, then down again as the towel went softly across her thighs. “Oh? You were getting a little rough back there, sweetheart.”

She bristled and a very strong desire to kick him washed over her. _His face is right there..._ “So? You like it rough. Or are you angry that you lost control first?”

“That’s not the point. And when I said “rough,” I meant on yourself. Did you think I’d miss the marks on your legs?” he asked, wiping the last streaks of his seed off her thighs with the warm damp towel. “This was supposed to be about you, and your pleasure. You didn’t relax. You didn’t let me please you. Instead, you went after me.” He kissed her now-clean thigh, then grinned up at her, sudden and sharp. “Maybe next time I’ll tie you down, make sure you can’t scheme and tease and torture me until you’re completely worn out with bliss.”

Pleasure and alarm ran through her, sent a pulse of fire between her legs. “You...you first!”

Still smiling he kissed her, slow and hot. Hugged her tight. “Little beast,” he murmured, “my vicious, wicked, bloodthirsty beast. Turnabout is fair play...but you have to let go sometimes, sweet. You can’t always be in charge.”

Metal, leather, the sandalwood scent of his hair. _Neither can you,_ Ayaka thought, unmoving in the circle of his arms. _Neither can you. This is just the beginning, Lucius Tiberius._ Gently, slowly, she cupped his cheek. Took his mouth with hers, felt him laugh. “Darling,” he whispered, “you’re incorrigible.”

_Exactly. Watch me._

_I’ll prove it to you._

 

After the third just-one-last kiss, she pushed him off her, peeled his groping hands from her breasts and her thighs. “Enough. We can’t stay up here all day,” she snapped, and picked a clean pair of underwear and tights out of her bag. Buried the soiled ones at the very bottom. “I’m going to change and head back to Garden. Leave everything here for now--”

“Sure you don’t want help?” he said sweetly, his eyes on her butt.

_”No.”_

“Go be Emperor somewhere else,” she said as they came down the stairs, Lucius Tiberius’s arm firmly around her shoulders. His gloves were spotless and her soiled clothes well packed away, but Ayaka couldn’t help feeling that SEX was written on their bodies in huge glowing letters. “You don’t need to hang around me every second--” 

“I’m desensitizing you.”

“ _Desensitizing?_ Where do you--” 

Two men carried a desk past them, its surface pitted and shabby with work, while another man carefully wrapped instruments of brass and copper and bronze in white cloths. Njeri held a box of inlaid woods and gestured for a woman to bring her the books she was carrying. From the workshop door Aniketos watched, a leather-bound notebook under his arm.

For a moment she couldn’t speak. _Papa, I--_ “Oh, you’re...you’re done,” she finally croaked. Strange faces turned to her, shrouded with concern. Sympathy. The bruise in her heart spread, grew a little colder, a little wider. “Where’s...where’s Arthur?”

_In here, Ayaka._

_The laundry room?_ she thought, and followed the tug under her breastbone to him, the Emperor at her heels.

The door stood wide, sunlight flooding the room. Inside, Arthur, fully armored, was carefully folding and packing clean laundry into a wicker basket she didn’t recognize.

He looked up with a smile. “I remembered that there was still a load in the dryer from the other day. Some of your sleepwear--oh, and your blouses that I hung up to dry.” Ayaka followed his hand to the drying rack, the drooping white flags of her clothes. Silently, she collected them, let Arthur take them out of her hands, fold and pack them. Stood watching him, his calm sure movements, the contentment on his brow. 

The strain, slight and well-hidden, around his eyes.

Ayaka wrapped her arms around him from behind, rested her cheek against his back. Cold metal under the thin cloth of his hood, and she couldn’t feel his warmth, or his heart. “Was it very bad?” she whispered, and held him tighter, despite the metal dividing them.

Arthur stopped. Rested both his hands, leather and metal, over hers. “No, not bad. Nothing I have not already dealt with. But, you--how are you feeling?” He turned to look at her, his eyes dark with love, while his fingers entwined with hers. “This is well-trodden ground for me, while you are living all this anew.” 

She looked away, feeling inexplicably guilty. “Oh. Um, I’m okay. I guess. For now. I can be...I can be sad later.” A sudden feeling of tears made her blink hard, hide her face against his hood. “We...I...we should just pack everything up and leave as quickly as possible. No way of knowing when we might get attacked.” Warmth seeped into the cloth under her cheek. “Don’t you think?”

“I do,” he replied quietly, and she felt him begin to move again. “I’ll be finished shortly. There’s laundry that I didn’t get to before we...left, though I suppose that can be cleaned at the base. The garbage has been taken out. Non-perishable foods can left behind. I don’t know if it’s worth it to take the other--” 

Lucius Tiberius coughed. She and Arthur both turned to look at him leaning against the door, a slight frown curling his mouth. “You really wait on Ayaka hand and foot, don’t you, love? Making breakfast for her this morning, and now this.”

“Part of a knight’s duty,” Arthur replied quietly, his hands never pausing, “is to serve his Lady to the utmost.”

The Sword Emperor tilted his head to the side, and a new note--hard, impatient--came into his voice. “Yes, but you don’t need to do that any longer, my heart. That’s why I have my people: to handle the lowly work. They’re your people too, you know. Serve Ayaka in other ways--like cutting down her enemies so we can banish sorrow from the world. So we can live in pleasure, the way we’re meant to. You’re the Emperor of Rome now, love. Let these things go.”

Arthur shot him an unreadable look. Continued to fold. “As the Emperor,” he said, voice very dry, “it pleases me to do this.”

Lucius Tiberius sighed, ran a hand through his hair. Looked away. “Is this another peasant thing?”

“No, it’s an Arthur thing,” Ayaka snapped before her husband could reply, “and _leave him alone_. We don’t tell you how to be Emperor. Quit telling him how to be Arthur.”

“So you say.” Tight-lipped, the Sword Emperor straightened up, turned to leave. “But remember, love: the whole point behind this marriage was you exchanging yourself. For peace. For pleasure. For the world. All the things you can’t obtain on your own.” 

Arthur’s body went stiff beneath her arms. “Fulfillment. Reciprocation. We’ve discussed this before. Let me take care of you, as I vowed to do. Surrender everything that’s beneath you and relax for once in your lives.” Lucius Tiberius stopped and looked back at them, his eyes glinting shards of amethyst. “While you still can.”

They stood in rigid silence as the sound of the Emperor’s boots faded into the distance. “I’m going to murder him,” Ayaka finally muttered, her voice hollow against his armor. “And you can’t stop me.”

Some of the tension left Arthur, and he stroked her hand. “Yes, I can,” he murmured. She could feel him smiling in her thoughts. “But if you promise to abstain from murder, I promise that as soon as this Grail War is finished, I’ll beat him soundly and throw him in the nearest river for you.”

The tears couldn’t stop her smile. “Deal,” she said, and he turned to her. Taking her in his arms, her Arthur, her true husband, her only love sealed their vow with a kiss as the sun wrapped around them and turned the entire world to gold.


	2. Chapter 2

**mini an:** this doesn't follow directly from the first chapter, but takes place a day or two later. real an at the end. 

_Long day is over,_ Lucius Tiberius thought as he made his way back to his bedchamber, _and now to my beloveds’ arms for a well-deserved rest._

Well, arms and rest after Ayaka finished her training session with their mages. Despite the lateness of the hour and the fatigue painted all over her pretty face, she’d insisted on staying with such grim-lipped determination that he’d acquiesced without further argument. _Can’t say I blame her one bit. That bitch’s comments clearly rankled the hell out of her, all the more so because they held truth. Still, the “third-rate mage” won, and you lost, Misaya Reiroukan. Choke on it._ A grin rose to his mouth, wide and predatory. _And if that acid tongue of yours keeps flapping, you sure as hell won't be using it for very much longer._

He nodded to the guards half-seen in the shadows as he passed, felt barrier after barrier acknowledge and allow him, a sensation like wet sheets over his brow. Frustrating not to be able to go faster, knowing that Arthur was waiting so patiently for him in their rooms, but there was no choice but to bow to caution under the circumstances. _Oh well. What’s that saying--“the delights of anticipation”? There’s something in that._

Final barrier passed, and the door just before him. Joy quickened his steps. _Here I am, love,_ he sang, and flung the door open to find complete darkness and his eternal love, sitting bent at the table, one hand over his eyes.

Alarm coursed through him. “Arthur?” He snapped lamps on, broke the blackness into simple shadows, brought back all the richness in the room. Knelt at his husband’s side, scrutinized the pale triangle that was the only visible part of his face. “What it is? What’s the matter, love?”

Arthur said nothing; then he stirred and turned slightly, away from the light. “Nothing. Nothing...of concern,” he finally said, eyes still shrouded by his hand. “I’m simply tired.”

“Tired? I’m sure you are.” Lucius Tiberius took the chair beside Arthur, laid a hand on his bent shoulder. “But this is really about earlier. Isn’t it, love?” Gently, he ran his fingers up and down the line of his husband’s arm. Rubbed the join between neck and shoulder, willed his beloved's rigid muscles to relax. “There’s no need to be upset, Arthur. Everything’s fine. Ayaka’s fine. It all went off without a hitch, love. You know that Ayaka was never in any danger. That I’d never let a hair on our darling’s head be touched.”

“Mmmm,” he said from behind his hand. His lips were tight.

“It was her idea.”

“Yes. That was made quite clear to me when, as my Master, she ordered me to comply.”

 _And that hurt, didn’t it, love._ Ayaka’s soft remorseless voice, her bright hard eyes. _Saber. As your Master, **you will do as I command.** _ She must have been dying inside, but she had held to it, and Arthur had found himself publicly demoted from beloved husband to slave, all in a single sentence. Even the Emperor had winced.

“It was worth it though, because we _won._ ” Arthur didn’t move. “Lancer and his Master fell straight into our trap, just as planned, and they’re ours now. Safe in our fold, one less thing to worry about. Doesn’t that call for a little gladness?”

“Yes.” Suddenly his hand lifted, revealing eyes like charred emeralds. “But was the brutality used to achieve this end truly a necessity? Death curses? Cutting off Lancer’s arm?”

 _Ah, here we go again._ To give his dragon time to calm, Lucius Tiberius rose and went to the sideboard, studied the wines. Picked the best red, set it on the table, poured for two. He placed Arthur’s before him, took a healthy swallow of his own. “I didn’t cut off his whole arm, love,” he said, feeling his lips turn, unable to hold back the grin. “Just the forearm, and it wasn’t even the entire bit. He still had a good two inches left below his elbow, remember? Besides, it’s not as if my mages can’t grow it back.”

Arthur’s head dropped back into the cradle of his hands, and a sound very much like _arrrghh_ came from within.

Lucius Tiberius smoothed his hair. Tugged gently at his cowlick, tried to make him lift his head again. “You know as well as I do that war is a filthy thing, my love.” _And gods, how I do revel in it._ “Insults to our precious wife aside, if you think I’m going to let that Reiroukan woman run loose with only her saccharine little smile and good word as pledge, you’re a fool, Arthur. I know her type. She reminds me far, far too much of a cousin of mine, Lavinia Lucasta.” 

He drained his wine, poured another, drank half. “Same damn type, the two of them. Serene face shielding a black heart. Lavinia was sweetness itself, all scent and smiles, and fluttering silks. She’d been married off to the idiot scion of the Barbula branch of the Aemilii, a man no woman in her right mind could want, but despite that she was the epitome of the perfect Roman wife. Beautiful, generous, dutiful. Always ready with a kind word, gifts and tribute, loving overtures to me, the isolated young prince. She’d pat my head and exclaim over me, tell everyone what a fine man I would become, valiant and strong. When we were alone, she’d whisper to me how I would surely surpass my father in greatness.” Lavinia Lucasta, bending over him, her hyacinth perfume thick in his nose. Stroking his cheek, _oh, my Emperor, thou art the glory of Rome._ Crows tearing wet strips off her body as it lay rotting in the front garden of her villa. 

Lucius Tiberius twirled the empty glass between his fingers. Watched light break over the table, over Arthur’s white face. “You know where this is going, don’t you, love?”

His husband’s lips barely moved. “Murder.”

The Emperor laughed, and sent the glass spinning away with a snap of his fingers, heard it smash upon the floor. “Hit! A very palpable hit. She waited maaaaaybe five hours after I’d taken the throne to send the first of many, many assassins after me. From age thirteen to age seventeen, at least twenty of the assassins that went after me came from her. Mind you, those are the ones I _know_ about. There’s another ten or so that are debatable, but...hah, does it really matter now? I won. She lost. All her beauty and wiles, all her plans and schemes ended in rope and a stinking corpse, exposed to all the eyes of Rome as a traitor.” He stretched. Rubbed one foot gently up and down Arthur’s calf, hooked their legs together. “I can’t stand that two-faced bullshit, especially from women. Misaya Reiroukan had better watch herself. _“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m already possessed of a curse.”_ So what? If she fucks with us, I’ll make certain mine gets her first.”

Lines of pain were forming around Arthur’s mouth. “I know this won’t matter to you, but I saved her, when she was a child,” he said quietly, eyes on the table’s dark wood. “One night Berserker attacked as she walked the grounds outside her manor. Fortunately, I was close enough to intercede and drive him off. She looked at me in gratitude and in fear, before running away. Despite her youth, her eyes were pure and forthright, her bearing noble. To see the woman she has become--” His eyes met Lucius Tiberius’s, flat with grief. “Yet another casualty of my sin.”

Stricken, he took Arthur’s cold hands between his, tried to rub some life into them. “No, love, no. You didn’t know about Caster’s curse, and laying that aside, Misaya Reiroukan chose her own path. None of that has anything to do with you. You’re not responsible for what she’s made of herself.”

“But would she have made such choices if not for the doom upon her?” His gaze was far away. “Caster. That twisted, pitiful man. No, I did not know about the curse. But I knew that he had betrayed and slaughtered his Master to join with Manaka, and yet I remained allied with them despite that. Now, to learn that he would stoop so low as to do such a thing to a child...a child he had seemingly befriended? A child whose name was upon his lips as he died?” 

“Really? There’s a story there...Sounds like someone had regrets. Maybe we can use her against him.”

A sigh. “Regrets? Yes, many. How often did he ask why I, a virtuous knight, failed to execute him for his treachery?” One finger touched his glass of wine, traced the stem. The crimson liquid lapped gently against the bowl as he turned it, eyes fixed on the wine’s depths. “While Caster’s may have been the hand, I’m certain the genesis of the idea was Manaka. She did tell me, almost as soon as I was summoned, that she intended to strike at the children of the opposing Masters in order to subdue them.” Arthur’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Despite the fact that Lord Reiroukan seems to have been murdered before Caster laid the curse.”

He untangled himself from Lucius Tiberius and took a long drink of the wine. “No, Lucius Tiberius. No matter how you look at things, the evils of the last War can be justifiably heaped upon my own head. Had I had not been blind to righteousness, I would have turned around and immediately broken the contract as soon as Manaka’s cruel plans left her lips, but my misguided wish held me like a vise. I deluded myself into thinking her callousness nothing more than childish naivete. Then, when it became obvious that she was little better than a fiend from hell, I shut my heart and my eyes and continued to act as her weapon. Harrowing the living for the sake of the dead. Hundreds of innocent girls. Misaya Reiroukan. Ayaka. All suffered unaccountably for my pride, my disregard for everything other than my own foolishness. That is my sin. Do you understand now?”

He couldn’t bear the sorrow etched on Arthur's face any longer. Taking his husband into his arms, the Emperor stroked his face, over and over, wiped the crimson stains off his lips with his thumb. _What a lot of fuss to make over a few hundred people he didn’t even kill himself. You’re much too good for this world, my love, you truly are._ “But you’re making it better,” he said into Arthur’s hair. “Even if you fucked up, heart of mine, you’re atoning with every breath in your body.”

Arthur shut his eyes, and said nothing.

Desperation touched his heart. “Love, think of it this way. You, in the midst of agonizing, failure-soaked death, were yanked from your bed of blood upon that hill and made a promise: _win the Grail and all that is wrong can be put right again._ Out of a completely reasonable wish to save your suffering people, you deluded yourself into thinking that Manaka Sajyou wasn’t sheer fucking evil. Okay, fine. Bad move on Arthur Pendragon’s part. The road to hell, etc., etc. But, what should you have done? What _could_ you have done? Love, oh my love, you know damn well that once she clutched you in her talons, Manaka would never have let you go. And, from what I understand, it sounds like you actually kept the slaughter down by forcing her to keep her rotten plans concealed from you.” Softly, he kissed the cold skin of his beloved’s forehead, his tight-shut eyes, the stiff line of his jaw. “How many more would have died if you weren’t there to act as a check on her? Think about that.”

Arthur’s breath caught.

Like a child, he rocked him. “They’ll all die, love, they’ll all die, Caster and Manaka, the other tainted Servants, all of them, every single one. The world will be safe, your penance complete. We’ll win and be happy, all three of us together, you and Ayaka and I. I’ll even have my mages get the original death curse off Misaya for your sake. No more need for recriminations, no more sorrow.” He kissed Arthur, tasted the sweetness of rose, the dry sharp tang of oak. “I swear to you.”

Arthur’s lips moved under his, words that could have been affirmation, denial or prayer. So soft, his tongue, slowly growing hotter against the Emperor’s, promise of further bliss within. “I can’t bear to see you so unhappy," he whispered. "So, please let me make love to you. Let me take you out of yourself. Even if you think you deserve to be miserable, slip free for a while. Let yourself go.” 

A bitter smile hung over his husband’s lips. “You think,” he murmured, “you take me _out_ of myself?”

Lucius Tiberius laughed a little. Kissed him again. “Want to fight, then? Something more familiar, with fewer painful erections? At least on your part.”

His dragon’s look approached a glare. “A distinction without a difference, as your last sentence so plainly shows. No thank you. The last thing we need is for you to become...distracted, and cause an injury to befall one or both of us.”

 _Oh oh, he’s weakening._ Desire shot through his blood. “Please, Arthur. You need so very badly to relax. You won’t have to do a thing. I mean it. I won’t do anything you don’t want. You can be as unresponsive as you like, lie there like a plank stone-silent, I won’t mind. I’ll take care of everything, love, and all you’ll have to do willingly receive.” Gently, he turned Arthur’s face up to his and kissed him with every ounce of love and promise in his heart, let his feelings sweep into Arthur’s body like a storm-brought tide. _”Please.”_

“I...” His husband sighed. “I...oh, very well.”

Rapture bloomed inside him like a thousand flowers, made him grin and flush. “You won’t regret it, my heart.” He stripped and flung himself down on the bed, arms held wide, eager to receive all that he loved best in this world. “We’ll make the war go away for a while, give you a taste of what victory will bring. Endless pleasure, matchless peace.”

Slowly, so slowly, Arthur took off his clothes. His eyes, grave and slightly embarrassed, rested on Lucius Tiberius’s face as he unbuttoned his tunic, folded it, laid it aside. Began to unlace his breeches. _I’d like to believe he’s being deliberately teasing, but...oh well. Someday._

Breeches gone, and the thick gorgeous length of his husband’s cock before his eyes, his own cock pulsing with joy. Nude, his dragon came to him, white skin flecked with gold from the light. Laid beside him, inside the curve of his arms, his own held stiffly to his body, knees slightly bent. “What,” he said quietly, “do you want me to do?”

Lucius Tiberius took hold of him, gently brought Arthur’s arms around his neck, slipped one leg over the Emperor’s hip. “We’re going to take it easy for now,” he whispered, one hand making a slow map of his dragon’s side, tickling him lightly, and his husband shivered. “Like I said, respond or not as you please. I just want you to enjoy yourself.”

Arthur’s skin was smooth and dry, warm as spring, sweet to his lips. He murmured something as Lucius Tiberius traced his throat with his tongue, dampening that sweet skin until it shone, and turned faint rose. “Love.” The gentlest of bites over his pulse, a hand nudging their hips closer together. Kisses all over his face, light over his closed eyes, fiercer on his cheeks and forehead, and finally his lips. Honey, straight from the comb, he thought, heavy with joy. _How I love thee._ “Arthur,” he whispered into his mouth, and kissed him, hot and deliberate, tongue tender, entwining with his.

A flicker of response. Arthur’s tongue tentatively moving along his. Slowly, thoroughly, they kissed, mouths and chins wet, drinking the other’s power as it passed between them, humming like lightning. He sucked Arthur’s tongue, released it, captured it again. Nibbled him gently. _You’re getting hard, love,_ he thought, feeling Arthur’s cock brush against his own erection. Smiling, the Emperor pulled him closer, slowly ground their hips together until cock rubbed cock, tangling together, sweat and seed smeared over skin. Pleasure’s smoldering bite low in his belly, deep shivering breaths. Arthur shuddered against him, nails cutting crescents across Lucius Tiberius's back. 

Hair like silk under his fingers, the rough geography of old scars. _Even on your head, love? Oh, my Arthur._ He left Arthur’s mouth, gave his love to his ear, sucking the lobe, nibbling the shell. Warm curves under his tongue and a soft moan from his husband, his hips shifting. With loving care he eased Arthur onto his back, all the better to see and glory in him. _Definitely hard now,_ he noted with a grin, and ever-so-gently squeezed his cock, cupped his balls. Stroked them, light touches up and down, rolled them in his palm. 

Arthur groaned, hips rising to his hand, his mouth half open. “Could you...not...” he whispered after a moment, “just yet?”

“Go more slowly? Of course, if that’s what my heart wants.” There were further scars on his chest and belly, safer territory, thicker skin, roads for the Emperor to follow and claim. _I want to scar him,_ he thought pettishly, mapping ridges and valleys with his tongue, nipping softly here and there, teeth just harsh enough to leave soft wet marks. _Carve my own remembrance into his skin. Of course, I don’t want to hurt or upset him._ This scar ended right at Arthur’s nipple, a lovely convenience. Softly, he sucked and licked the rigid bud, swirled his tongue around it, _you’re hard all over, beauty._ Pulled it gently. A delicate press of teeth, another tiny mark, and his dragon groaned. _But it’s agonizing to see other men etched into his body. Mine. He’s mine, all mine, no one else’s...well, Ayaka._ A broad stripe licked right over Arthur’s heart, imitation and reminder of the Master’s Degree blackening that fragile skin, and his dragon moaned, fingers clenched in the sheets. _Still, I saw him first._

White drops upon his dragon’s cock. Gods, and his own was so hard he wanted to die of it. He stretched a hand to himself, slow tugs, as he sucked and teased the other nipple, gently pinching and fondling the one he’d left behind. Arthur’s breath was coming in short pants, his body twitching as if he wanted to leap up and shout, and gods, how he wanted to give him the encouragement to do so. _But he wants to go slow,_ he argued, and then an idea came to him, made his fingers tremble on his erection. He gave Arthur’s nipple one final kiss, then went up on his knees above him, hand cradling his cock. “Love.”

Arthur’s eyes opened slowly. “Mmm?” he said and Lucius Tiberius shuddered with joy at the sight of those lust-hazed eyes. His fingers stroked his cock, thumb quick and soft on the head, and he thought he saw Arthur’s body shake. “Look at me.”

Languidly, his fingers moved, a gentle display of what he wanted to do to Arthur. Softly squeezing his balls, slow firm strokes, his muscles knotting as he fought to keep himself. “I can’t last much longer.”

His dragon licked his lips. “No.” His voice was hoarse. “No, you can’t.”

“But we want to take it slow.” Back and forth, sweet, self-made torture, his cock like a living flame in his hand. “So...” He stopped, held himself firmly as his cock trembled, aching to spill. “May I? On your body. I’ll clean you afterwards, not a drop left.” Fever quickened him, made him half-mad for release but he held fast, his eyes locked on his beloved’s face. “Then, whatever you want.”

“Need I do anything?” he said unsteadily, and half-raised himself on his elbows, as if preparing for flight.

“Just lie there and look beautiful,” he replied softly. “Nothing more.”

Arthur bit his lip, looked down, his face opaque. Then he resettled himself, looked up again, and Lucius Tiberius felt his cock jump. “All right,” he said, his voice quiet, and the Emperor stroked himself with a groan.

 _All for you, all for you,_ he thought as he parted Arthur’s thighs, laid him open. His mind pulsed in time with his cock as he crouched over his husband’s body, working himself fiercely, _but not too fast, let me savor this, ah love, I want to fuck you senseless for the rest of eternity, love, love, love,_ and oh gods, the ecstasy clawing its way through him, body and brain, Arthur spread before him as an altar waiting to receive, his beautiful face tense yet accepting, his cock hard as the Emperor’s own. Arthur’s throat moved as he swallowed, and then his hand lifted, touched his cock with trembling fingers, feather-light. Sea-green eyes held his as his dragon touched himself in tandem with Lucius Tiberius’s own movements. Rapid pulse under that fine skin, bliss washing over Arthur's face, fire and light and straight to the drowning depths with him, _love, oh my love, yes yes yes--"Fuck,"_ he gasped and tore in two. 

White seed on white skin, on the red tower of his dragon’s cock. Panting, he dropped, pressed his face to his beloved’s belly. Seed, bitter and wonderful on his tongue, as he gathered every drop off that hot skin, made Arthur pure again. Teasing his navel, lapping at the curve of a hip, at the soft golden curls shielding the base, _may I, love?_

Hesitation. Then, a whispered _yes_.

Lucius Tiberius grinned, and swallowed him, pulled him deep into his throat. Sucked him hard, his hand cradling Arthur’s hips as he thrashed and moaned. _You won’t last either._ Throat filled completely with flesh like silk-clad steel, hard and pulsing, ready to break. Tauntingly, he stroked his tongue against the underside of his cock, flicked it over velvet skin. Groaning, he drew his head up, all the way, until Arthur nearly slipped free of him, swirled his tongue over the head. Engulfed him again, straight down to the base, and Arthur’s groan became a shout.

_Almost there._ Gently his thumb pressed at Arthur’s entrance, circling, caressing. _Pardon the intrusion_ , he thought sweetly, and slipped two fingers inside, groaning at the way Arthur closed around him, grasping him so fiercely his bones ached. Loving thrusts, slow at first, then faster, his fingers caught and held so tightly. A few soft strokes against his prostate and his Arthur arched, writhed and came, pouring himself into Lucius Tiberius, making them one, his moans breaking against the Emperor’s ears like rain after a long dry spell.

Drunk with bliss he gathered his dragon back to him, lulled his groans with kisses, wiped his sweat-soaked brow. “Was it too much?” he whispered, mouth pressed to Arthur’s. One hand fumbled, found the vial of oil concealed beneath the mattress, worked it free. “Can you stand more? I’ll be gentle.”

Arthur opened one eye. “Can you stand less?” he grumbled, but his legs parted slowly, grudging acceptance.

Oil over his fingers, warm and sweet. The air, vibrant with love and spices. Arthur’s soft gasps settled like honey in his blood as Lucius Tiberius prepared him, eased his legs over the Emperor’s shoulders. Stretching him wide, pushing his fingers deep with Arthur’s body, coaxing forth moan after moan, _careful or he’ll come again before we even fuck._ “I love you,” he said when he finally entered, trembling from head to foot with exhilaration. He caught Arthur’s hands up, twined their fingers. Bent to kiss him. Thrust, deep and slow and sure. “I love you.”

“We’ve established that,” his dragon said, sounding slightly annoyed. A deep shudder ran through him and his fingers tightened in Lucius Tiberius’s grip. “It’s very obvious,” he said, more gently this time. His lips parted on a groan, his heels digging into the Emperor’s back. Was he trying to push him further in? Cautiously he rocked his hips, sank a little deeper, thrust a little more strongly. Moaned at the heat and the clutch of him. _I love you, you’re perfect, don’t change, but I wish you’d play with me like Ayaka does,_ he thought and went very slightly faster.

Pleasure, soft and steady, rippled through him. Arthur’s tongue fenced with his, not quite teasing, but wonderful all the same. His dragon held him tight, body open, yielding to his, and Lucius Tiberius shook with ecstasy. The room was starting to lose its edges, light moving like a river between them. “Arthur,” he whispered against his dragon’s throat. “Arthur.” Fingers moved in the Emperor’s hair and he whimpered, cock twitching. _Touch me sweetly, please, give me back just a little..._

Lips on his forehead, hands on his back, not exactly caressing, but close to it, close enough...He moaned and Arthur pushed up, squeezed him, his hips jerking. “You can...go faster,” he said, low into Lucius Tiberius’s ear and the Emperor’s breath caught. “It’s all right.”

“Sure?” He kept the slow, even rhythm he’d started with, cupped his dragon’s face. Studied his eyes. Behind a veil of lust, the sea lay calm, unbroken. “Certain?”

Arthur started to answer, broke into a moan as Lucius Tiberius rolled his hips harder, deeper. Fire wrapped his bones, made him bite his tongue with the sweet shock of it. “Mmm, _yes._ ”

That was all he needed. “Love,” he murmured as he pulled Arthur’s legs free, wrapped them around his waist. Pressed him down into the mattress with all of his weight and _thrust_ , his husband’s body warm and hard in his arms. Deeper, deeper, until they become irrevocably one, no more able to be parted than the sun and the sky, Arthur so soft and hot around him, his mouth stern against his. Trembling in a hell of ecstasy, pleasure raking him, twisting his mind. All was Arthur, everything he could see and feel and think, eternally part of him, his delight, his true love, so _deep, I’m coming--_

He muffled his yell in sunlight hair. Collapsed on him, shaking from head to foot, Arthur’s cock hard and wet against his belly. “You didn’t come, love?” he murmured, once he finally had breath enough for speech. “Why didn’t you say anything? Let me.”

“It’s fine,” Arthur said, voice low, but Lucius Tiberius wouldn’t hear of it. “Equal orgasms, period: your pleasure is mine,” he declared, his love’s cock dripping in his fist. Gently, he pumped him, watching with quiet delight as his dragon tossed and whimpered, pearly seed a shimmering rope between his fingers. Greedily, he licked up the strands, reached for his husband’s cock once more, eager to drown him in pleasure--

Light steps in the hallway. The door swung in. “Umm...Arthur? Are you awake? If it’s okay, I want to--” 

Ayaka, hair disheveled, skin glowing with sweat, blouse slightly undone. Stopped dead on the threshold, staring. As if he was looking through her eyes, the Emperor took in the scene: Lucius Tiberius, crouched over Arthur like a beast with prey; Arthur staring back at Ayaka, open-mouthed, smeared with sweat and seed, legs wide over Lucius Tiberius’s shoulders, his cock rampant in the Emperor’s hand. 

Dull crimson spread like an inferno over Ayaka’s face, swept down her body. “Never mind! Busy! I can see you’re busy! Very busy! Leaving now! Sorry to bother! I’m...I’m going to take a bath!” The door slammed, hard enough to make the walls shake, as their wife ran as if all the fiends of Hades panted after her, her feet pounding down the hall.

They stayed frozen for another minute, and then Arthur rolled away, pulled himself from Lucius Tiberius’s grasping hand, snatched up a robe. Headed towards the door. “Love--” 

The dark hall swallowed Arthur up as the door shut again, more quietly.

Lucius Tiberius remained on the bed, Arthur’s seed dripping off his hand. Finally, he sighed and rose, licked his hand clean. Poured himself another glass of wine. Threw the empty glass in the cold fireplace and headed to the en-suite bathroom, cleaned himself, toweled dry. Donned his own robe, summoned servants to change the bed, drank the rest of the wine. The minutes ticked by, and still no sign of Arthur, or of Ayaka. Hunting the bookshelves for his current read, he sent the lightest touch, merest wisp, over both of them-- _oh_.

Book in hand, he settled in his spot in the bed, found the place he’d last left off. _They’ll come around eventually,_ he told himself as he tried to lose himself in Gibbon’s delightfully bitchy anti-Christian screeds once more. 

_I know they will._

_They have to._

_Someday._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, how about that arthur angst, huh. 
> 
> honestly, it makes me want to write arthur taking care of baby branwen fluff to compensate, but wait, that has angst too. just a little, but still. i am so very mean to him.
> 
> how much more fucked up can lucius tiberius's childhood get? you have no idea!
> 
> the plan to capture misaya and lancer: i haven't worked out every detail yet but it involved ayaka using herself as bait, which arthur obviously fervently objected to.


	3. Chapter 3

Ayaka had fled towards a bathroom at the far end of the base and he followed, feeling her heart beat frantically in time with his own. Flickers of anger and sorrow lashed his mind as he ran, desperate to catch up to her, but a sudden sharp ache in his groin stopped him dead in his tracks. _Wait._

Panting and flush-cheeked, he looked around him. Doors, dozens if not hundreds of them, stretching off into infinity. _I cannot go to her like this._ He tried the one nearest him and found it unlocked: another bathroom. The room was dark. He slipped inside and shut the door, leaning against it. Breathed deeply. Under the robe, his shaking fingers found flesh.

The Emperor’s image sprang up against his closed eyes. Hot hands teasing him, kisses full of gentle, desperate love. Lucius Tiberius inside him, so thick and hard, his careful tenderness almost more excruciating than the devouring lust he’d exhibited on their wedding night, so painlessly pleasing he’d almost lost himself in the sweetness, until he’d snapped to himself and made the Emperor go faster, made it hurt--

Release, sticky and hot over his hand. Arthur took several deep, trembling breaths before he could move again, clean himself thoroughly. _I will grow used to this in time,_ he told himself as he washed, _but until then I must manage as best I can._

Finished, he set off again, following the pull of his heart. A long twisting road later, he found himself facing a door no different than the one he had used earlier. Faint rustling came from within. 

Softly, he rapped at the door. “Ayaka. May I come in?”

Immediate silence. Silence that stretched on and on, with no respite, but he would never enter without her permission. “If you do not wish to see me,” he said into the polished wood, “I will leave at once.”

Quiet. Then, a very soft: “Come in.”

Ayaka stood in the very center of the room, naked save for her skirt and brassiere, which she was halfway through unfastening. Her cheeks were a soft rose. Slowly, she finished unclasping her brassiere and set it aside. The rose sped downward, deepened. One arm came up against her breasts, fingers pulling and picking at the skin of her other arm. She looked at the floor.

“Ayaka,” he said quietly.

Her eyes closed, mouth creasing in sorrow.

He took another step forward, placed his hands on her arms. Enfolded her, brought her to his heart. Stroked her hair, whispered love as a shudder took her. The hedging arm fell away; then a hitching breath, and she was sobbing into his throat.

 _Sweet Lady._ His heart was a knot of ice in his chest. _She cherished such hopes that she could spare me from Lucius Tiberius. Surely she knew this would happen sooner rather than later, but it cannot be any less painful for that._

“Beloved, I’m so sorry,” he murmured, rocking her as grief racked her slender frame. “Truly, I am sorry. But this was never something we could forestall.”

“You’re...you’re not mad at me?” she whispered, voice broken with weeping. 

_Is this...not about my coupling with Lucius Tiberius?_ “Dearest, why would I be angry with you?”

Ayaka pulled away. “Why wouldn’t you be angry at me?” Tears coursed down her cheeks, mingled and ran with the sweat already present. “I...ordered you like-like a slave in front of everyone because you didn’t want to do my plan, and I _made_ you do it.” Her voice shook. “You hated the plan, I could feel it--” 

“But you thought it right. And you were right, as the events of tonight bore out.” Bitterness slid like a needle into his heart, but he was too well-trained to let it show. “You are my Master. I am your Servant, your sword. It is not for me to object to your tactics.”

Soft blue eyes, made dull by weeping, looked into his. “You’re not a slave, you’re my husband,” she said hoarsely. “But I still made you do something that scared you. I felt that, Arthur.” 

“You were terrified yourself. Yet you carried out a plan you thought correct despite your fears.”

Ayaka shook her head so fiercely that the fine black strands of her hair whipped at her cheeks and stuck to her tears. “It’s not the same! Not at all! Even if I was scared, it was my decision to do it. Mine. I wasn’t being forced. Unlike you.”

Trembling fingers touched his arms, his shoulders, his back. Jerked and plucked at the silk of his robe. “It's-it's hard, being a wife and a Master at the same time. Harder than I thought, really, really harder. This is the first time I've ever had to order you to do something. Before, we always decided everything together. Or...or you just let me have my way, even though I had no idea what I was doing." Ayaka’s laugh was dry. Touched with disgust. "And n-now we've been married five days and-and on top of... _everything_ else I'm-I'm forcing you to do things that you don't want to do." More tears slipped free. "Like Lucius Tiberius...like Manaka."

 _Oh, my dearest_. Should he speak, tell her that Manaka had never forced him to follow her orders against his will, that it was his own blind stupidity and pride that had kept him as her sword? His voice lay dead in his throat. _We must talk of this eventually. She deserves to know and understand the fullness of my sin. But now is not the time, when her heart is shuddering with grief._ "No. Ayaka, no." He held her tighter. "Absolutely not like Manaka. You could never be like Manaka, even on your worst days. Lucius Tiberius either, for that matter." 

“Are you sure about that?” she muttered and darted a bright shy glance at him. “I can...I can get pretty nasty, you know.”

“Haughty Princess Ayaka can be quite the spoiled lady,” he agreed, and smiled at her scowl. “But all joking aside, you lack the joy in cruelty, the monstrous egotism, that blots those two. Never will you descend to either of their depths.” 

A flicker in Ayaka’s mind, dead almost as soon as it came to light. She bent her head; shut her eyes. Gently, he stroked her hair. Rubbed her back, her skin wet and feverish under his fingers. "You are my Lady, and my Master. It is my duty to fulfill your wishes to the utmost. I should never have disagreed with you. It only added to your sorrow."

Another stubborn shake; she was not about to let herself off so easily. “You were only trying to protect me,” she whispered, “as my Servant should. As my _husband_ should.”

Arthur sighed. “Please don’t blame yourself.” _I am the one who should be blamed, for this, and for everything else that grieves you._ Gently, he slipped off her glasses; even more gently kissed her reddened eyes, her pain-twisted mouth. _The tensions and evils of the last few days are surely eroding her, and it will be many a day before we can draw an untroubled breath. I must soothe her as best I can, and as often as I can._

“War is harrowing even to those hardened by battle, apart from the ones who glory in such things.” The Sword Emperor’s smirk. His loving, capable, dreadful hands. “You have lived a very sheltered, circumscribed existence, one in which you were given no help, no guidance, no training for the terrifying destiny laid upon you. Of course you struggle. It’s natural, and nothing to be ashamed of. I certainly didn’t expect you to be a master tactician your first time out.”

“Some people are, though,” she said under her breath, not looking at him, and Arthur saw Misaya Reiroukan’s cool smile and barbed eyes.

“You won,” he said into her ear. Her breasts rose and fell against his chest as she took a shaking breath. “My queen, for all her stumbling, carried off the victor’s crown, and prevented who knows how many future tragedies. Whatever else happens, we have at least saved Lancer and Miss Misaya from whatever hideous fate awaited them in Manaka’s clutches.” He grimaced. “Though they may deem us a distinction without a difference after being exposed to the Sword Emperor’s dubious courtesies.”

Another shiver, but this time from anger, not sorrow. “Yes, and now he wants them to _come to a party?_ For my 21st birthday? What the hell is wrong with him?” Her fists thumped on his back. “First of all, they hate us! Second, my birthday isn’t for another three weeks! Third, I--arghh! I don’t get it! I don’t get him!”

“Roman arrogance. When in doubt, the answer is always Roman arrogance. Lucius Tiberius wants to show off, and to show you off. A display of his power over them, and a reinforcement of your status. He was--” A scowl touched his mouth, but vanished in an instant. _Calm. For her sake, you must remain calm._ “Noticeably displeased with Miss Misaya earlier, as I’m sure you remember. And...”

_And despite all his posturing, even the Emperor admits that he cannot be certain we will be here in three weeks’ time._

“You can say it, you know.” Ayaka’s voice was very quiet. “In three weeks, none of us might still be here.”

Ayaka, serene and lovely in a blue gown, circled by flowers. Ravens in her arms and a bear cub gamboling at her feet. He exhaled. “No. Whatever else may happen, _you_ will still be here."

Tears gathered again in his wife's eyes; he stroked them away with his thumb and she turned her face into his hand with a sob. “Arthur...” 

"I swear this to you, on my heart, and on my blade." Cheek to cheek, breath to breath, her tears falling upon him like rain. "Though hell itself come boiling through the cracks of the world, Ayaka Sajyou will live to see her 21st birthday.”

A quiet moan. Then, Ayaka’s voice, strong and clear underneath her weeping.“And-and I’ll swear too.” Her small hands clutched at him, pressed deep into his skin, holding him so close he could scarcely breathe. A kiss fluttered over his mouth. “On my entire self, I swear that no matter what, on my 21st birthday, Arthur Pendragon will be at my side.”

Grief filled his eyes, overflowed. Silently, he wept, keeping himself perfectly still so she would not suspect and work herself into further sorrow; wept for their love and for her pain as they huddled together, heavy heart to heavy heart. _If only..._

 _Nooooo. Nope, nope, nope, nope._ Merlin before him, her finger on her lips. _Remember what I said? If you want to boil gasoline, go right ahead, but if not, I’d keep my mouth shut about you-know-who and you-know-who, especially since you-know-who is first. You knowing is bad enough as it is: don’t drag the Queen into a hope hole she won’t be able to pull herself out of._

 _...As you say,_ he thought, his heart aching with bitterness, and the mage vanished.

Not for the first time he wished Ayaka removed from all this; longed for a sanctuary for her, haven not only from the battlefield, but from all the sorrows and cares that had been heaped upon her narrow shoulders. _We’ll build a golden tower for our princess,_ Lucius Tiberius had said with a grin, _and shut her away from all the filth and rabble of the world._

 _He jested,_ Arthur thought, _but God help me, sometimes I wish that golden tower true._

Softly, he pressed his lips to the top of Ayaka’s bent head. Whispered a prayer of benediction for her. _Pain today for happiness tomorrow. But will the balance weigh out equally in the end?_

“Ayaka.” She stirred. “It grows late, and you must be very tired. This has been a very long and very hard day for you. Let me draw you a bath so you might refresh yourself before sleeping.”

“But don’t you need a bath too?” she murmured. Her mouth frowned but her eyes held shy appeal. “You’ve had a rough day too, you know--I-I mean with all the ordering and fighting and, um, everything. Let me bathe _you._ ”

Ayaka’s soft hands on his body, soap-covered, cleaning him with tender and thorough devotion. Beloved hands, trying their best to wipe Lucius Tiberius from his skin, touching him everywhere...

His pulse quickened. “I’ve...I’ve already cleaned myself, thank you.”

“But you didn’t bathe. It’s not the same,” she said, quietly inexorable. “You’re always fighting so hard, for me and for everyone else, Arthur. When do you rest? Please, as your wife--let me take care of you for once.” She looked up at him, sky-blue eyes full of love, as her fingers played with the collar of his robe. 

Arthur was suddenly aware of how little cloth separated their naked bodies. Warmth gathered inside him, stretched sly hands towards his groin. She had given him a look much like that on their wedding night, when, his body singing, he had kissed her white throat and shyly, carefully, touched her soft wet sex--

Blood rushed into his head, set his cheeks ablaze. _Why now, of all times? Desire has no place here. My wife is simply doing her best to try and comfort me! Must I repay her consideration with lust?_ A thought struck him like a blow to the stomach. _Could this be...is this because I was left...unsated...when she interrupted me and Lucius?_

 _Though, if such is the case, then perhaps my queen **should** make amends for my...dissatisfaction?_ That odd voice again, soft, dark and gleeful, a black serpent winding through his thoughts. _Let her lay her sweet head upon my lap and with that lovely mouth su--_

 _ **Enough.**_ Voice, lust, all of it sent hurtling to the bottom of his mind and an adamant door slammed upon the pack of them. Arthur took a deep breath. Opened eyes he hadn’t realized were closed. Was Ayaka looking at him with concern? No; he must be imagining things, he decided, and tenderly cupped her cheek.

“A knight serves his Lady, not the other way around,” he reminded her with equal fortitude. “I thank you for your concern, but truly Ayaka, I’m not in such dire straits as you think. I am used to battle; you aren’t. You are human; I am not.” He softened his words with a smile. “Therefore, I’d be far happier ensuring your comfort than you tending to mine.”

A familiar stubborn crease was forming in the corner of his wife’s mouth and he waited for the argument that would surely follow. Then, to his enormous relief, she sighed and stepped away, her shoulders slumping. “All right. If it makes you happy, I’ll take the bath.” Slowly she began to unbutton her skirt, her eyes locked on his.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. It was difficult to speak, harder still to swallow. Turning away from those bright eyes, he cast a quick look over the room. It was designed after a traditional Japanese bath, with a separate area for washing and a large tub for soaking, but the tub, while made of cedar, had been fashioned in a more Western style. Flowers of pale cream and gold sprouted from carved recesses on its sides and the taps were an elaborate work of marble and silver. Small cut-glass containers stood in a niche to one side. Curious, he opened one after starting the water and a warm, pleasantly musky scent filled his nose. Bath salts.

Cloth hit the floor. 

Quickly, he opened another jar and was assailed by the scent of roses. Grimacing, he shut it and set it down; opened the next. Violets. He smiled and took a deep breath. How suitable and how like Ayaka: delicate blooms that kept their heads low and hid their beauty amidst dark, screening leaves. Still smiling, he took a handful and scattered it over the water, watching the pale lavendar crystals shimmer and vanish into the steam.

“I’m ready, Arthur.”

His heart jumped. Slowly, he added another handful of the salts. Turned the water off. His wife was perched on the stool in the washing area, back straight, hands folded primly in her lap. Crimson patched the white skin of her breasts, which had been pushed forward by the position of her arms, emphasizing their fullness. She had blushed like that once before, when he had laid his head against her heart and caressed her breasts, kissed them, sucked and licked them, as she stroked his hair--

“I’m co--I’ll be right there.” His mouth was as dry as a burnt forest. Making sure his robe was securely fastened in front he crossed the room to the pegs on the wall nearest the door; heard Ayaka turn on the stool to watch him. His hands began to shake. Carefully, making certain his back was always towards her, he stripped the robe off and hung it on a peg. Wrapped a towel around his waist. _How very bright it is in here. It might hurt Ayaka’s eyes. Is there a dimmer setting?_ he thought idiotically as his fingers groped at the wall switch--

“Arthur!”

“Sorry. My apologies. I was merely...never mind.” Gathering the soap, bucket and cloth helped steady him and he was nearly normal again as he carried them to where Ayaka waited, biting her lip. 

“Bend your head, dearest.” Warm water rained gently upon her, soaking her soft hair until it lay flat and shining against her scalp. More water over her shoulders and back, and she shivered. “Is the water not hot enough?”

“No! No, it’s fine.” Her eyes, large and troubled, met his over her shoulder. “But..are you okay kneeling on tile like that? Won’t it hurt your knees?”

She was still biting her lip, a habit he had tried repeatedly to gently scold her from. Sweet, rose-colored lips, warm and soft against his. It would be the simplest thing to lean forward and distract her with a kiss, so she would stop worrying her lip and hurting herself... _Surely a single kiss would not be dangerous? Kisses are comfortable; kisses I can handle._

Her silken shoulders moved under his hands as he leaned towards her. Ayaka made a muffled noise as their lips met, her mouth opening slightly under his tender kiss. The pointed tip of her tongue, so hot against his. Desire rushed upon him as they drew closer. Her breasts moved against his chest, their nipples brushing, and his manhood thickened, ached--

 _Stop! Stop, stop, stop._ Arthur broke away from her, gasping for air. _God help me, I **am** turning into another Lucius Tiberius._ Tight-lipped, he found the sponge and soap again, resumed his task. First he would wash her hair, then her back, then her slender arms. After that...her feet, perhaps. And after that... _I will cross that chasm when I come to it._

“Arthur?” Ayaka’s voice was so low it was nearly a whisper. “What’s the matter?”

“Hmm?” The shampoo smelled like blossoms; very appropriate for the Queen of Avalon to smell like a flower garden. _Not that she does not smell heavenly all on her own_. Carefully, he combed her hair back with his fingers, working them against her scalp to relax her. “What do you mean, Ayaka?”

She tilted her head back so sharply and suddenly it made him jump. “You know exactly what I mean, Arthur Pendragon!” Fierce blue eyes raked him; promised judgment, and execution. “Why did you stop kissing me?”

Heaven help him: she sounded disappointed. Almost angry. _Why?_ “Because...” _Because I seem to have completely lost all sense of decency and self-control._

He began again. “I...ah. I apologize, both for stopping and for kissing you in the first place. My...it was a lapse of judgment. I shouldn’t be imposing myself upon you when you are worn and exhausted from today’s events. I am not Lucius Tiberius to selfishly place my desires over all other considerations.” He could not help but send a glance at the crystal around her throat, its soft lambent light proclamation of the Emperor’s self-indulgence. Ayaka had been upset that day as well, but the Sword Emperor had paid no mind, and she had returned to his side with Lucius Tiberius’s scent thick upon her body. “Close your eyes, please; I need to rinse.”

A slow tide of white was creeping over the angry red in Ayaka’s cheeks. “I will not,” she said in a strangled whisper, “until you kiss me again.”

She rushed at him, a small angry dove; hugged him, toppled him, and they went down in a heap, the sprayer rattling away across the floor. Her lips touched the pulse in the hollow of his throat; less than a bite, more than a kiss. “Why would you ever think,” she said, her voice muffled by his skin, “that I would ever not want you to kiss me?”

Her breasts, hot against his chest. Their naked bellies pressed together where his towel had come undone. “Because,” he replied quietly, despite his thundering heart, “Lucius Tiberius is lust enough for you to have to deal with without me adding to your burdens as well. We cannot refuse him. But we can grant each other respite.”

She looked at him and he saw with dismay that tears were gathering in her eyes. “Maybe I don’t want respite, dummy,” she said, in a thick voice, and kissed his shoulder furiously. “Especially from you! Don’t you get it? We can’t waste any time. We don’t know how long we’ll be together, so I want us to be together just as much, if not more, than we’re with Lucius Tiberius.” A kiss, hard upon his mouth. “Don’t...don’t hold yourself back because of that stupid damned Emperor, Arthur. Sex with you will never be an imposition. I love you.” One hand tentatively brushed his cheek; he caught and kissed it. “I want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” he whispered. “I have my wife, who loves me as no one ever has. You gave me the true path. You see Arthur instead of the king; you love Arthur instead of the king. You let me cook with you, and clean with you and shop with you, and for this little while I have seen what it means to live a normal life.” _Well, normal as can be in the context of a Grail War._

_And, God willing, we will have a child, though my lips must remain sealed upon that._

Bear cub and ravens: if one could not exist without the other, then he would take them both, and gladly. “No matter what happens, this brief stretch of time has allowed me to lay aside the Once-and-Future King, and take Arthur up in his place.” Reverently, he kissed her palm. “And for that, and for the lady who loves me so, I will gladly face an army of ten million Manakas.”

The smile he had hoped for was small and unsteady. “If I make you happy, then please...be with me. I know you want to,” she whispered. Curling her small hand over his, she raised his fingers to her lips; one kiss for each finger, delicate and pleading. “Merlin said that you’re allowed to be selfish once in a while and I agree with her! Be selfish with me, Arthur. Take me. Do what you like, no matter what that is. If you want me to...you know, with my mouth, that’s fine. If you want to kiss me--” she gestured shyly to her sex “--that’s fine too.” A shaking laugh broke from her. “Let’s not leave all the...the good stuff to Lucius Tiberius, okay?”

It felt like all the light in the world had gathered and shone full in his face. He was dazzled blind, his mind blank and burning. “Ayaka...” Her name came out as a groan. He licked parched lips and tried again. “Ayaka.”

Calmly, she picked up the discarded sprayer and began to rinse the shampoo out of her hair. Her knees were spread, allowing him a perfect view of the dark secret space between her thighs. He had never seen...her, only touched, his fingers wrapped in smooth sweet warmth. Soft curls clustered over the triangle, a hint of shell pink showing through as she shifted her weight, and a shudder rocked him.

The Sword Emperor had put his mouth there, and Ayaka had moaned as if she was dying, her body arching and seizing, her fingers knotted in Lucius Tiberius’ hair. He’d made Arthur touch her, dragged his fingers all over her sex, flaunting the depraved skills he’d already demonstrated so thoroughly on Arthur. Ayaka had been so soaking wet, flushed and _open_ and at Arthur’s touch she had let out a soft rapturous cry. 

Guilt and a murderous rage had struck his heart like an arrow, yet under the wound something sly, shadowy and slippery had stirred. Coil by coil it had unwound, sliding thoughts into his mind: Ayaka lying in his arms, helpless with lust, her body bruised by his kisses and his seed dripping freely from her well-fucked sex--

 _No._ Gasping, Arthur struggled to sit up, his member rigid and unbearably painful, the towel no camouflage. Ayaka looked at him. Put the sprayer aside. On hands and knees she came to him, her skin luminous with water, her hair shimmering as if it was spangled with tiny stars. Her arms encircled him, holding him close. “Does it...hurt?”

 _I am not Lucius Tiberius. I am not Lucius Tiberius. I am not Lucius Tiberius._ “Please, don’t trouble yourself. It’s nothing I can’t manage--” 

Softly, her lips touched his, cutting his thoughts. Her tongue skimmed his lower lip, quietly asking entrance. Slowly, his lips parted for her. Deep sweet kisses, with the faintest hint of hunger, of need long denied. What need? He needed nothing but Ayaka.

Inch by inch they drew closer, until breast touched breast, belly rubbing belly. They drew back for air, their lips still touching, their mouths very wet. Ayaka’s hand, agonizingly gentle and burning like a white coal, touched his stomach. Slid down to his hip. “Arthur.” Her eyes were timid but her hand knew no such modesty. Slowly, her fingers explored; here, stroking the line of hair on his belly; there, sure and loving on his shaft, and his teeth snapped into his lower lip to stop his groan. 

“Arthur, I know you’re more comfortable taking care of people,” she whispered. Her thumb caressed the head, gently smearing the moisture gathering there as he shook like a coney in the hunter’s noose. “But if you just give and give and never take anything back, you’ll run yourself dry.” She touched the root of him, left a wet burning mark, softly and nervously stroked hair. Drew her fingers lightly back to the head. “Are you scared? Because of what happened last time?”

 _Yes. But not nearly as much as I fear myself._ Arthur lowered his eyes, seeing the curve of breast and belly, her soft dark thatch of hair. A pang went through him. He had managed--barely--to keep himself in check on their wedding night, mindful of how he had driven Gwenhwyfar from his side with his clumsy eagerness; mindful as well of Ayaka’s maidenhood and of the Sword Emperor waiting and watching like a wolf poised to feast. _But past is past, and now that this shadow moves within me, I no longer know myself._ “I am, a bit. I would do anything-- _anything_ \--to ensure that you are not hurt again.”

“You could never hurt me Arthur, you know that.” Her voice sounded stricken. “I don’t want you to be afraid while Lucius Tiberius does whatever the hell he wants. Remember, Aniketos said I needed to acclimate myself to your mana--” Ayaka stopped and a fierce blush touched her cheeks. “I...Look, I don’t want to just lie back and have you do everything every time we have sex. That’s not fair.” Before he could grasp what was happening, her head was halfway to his lap. “Don’t worry. I’ll only swallow a bit.”

Panic jabbed its thorns into his heart. “Ayaka, I truly appreciate your consideration, but I really would be happier if you would--if you would let me attend to you first. I can wait until later; _you_ are the one who should be cosseted, not I. _Please_.” Desperately, he caught at her shoulders, raising her sweet face to his, and kissed her; cupped her breast and squeezed it gently. Without thinking he drew his thumb over the tip; she moaned, and guilty pleasure sprang up inside him like blue fire. “After--afterwards..if you still wish to--wish to--” His words struggled and died. _I could barely contain myself when she cried out my name. Once her mouth is upon me, what if I run mad?_

“W-Wait, wait. Arthur, wait.” Crimson rose to Ayaka’s face and flowed down her body, but there was a gleam in her eyes. “T-There’s a way for the both of us to get what we want. At the same time even.”

“What do you mean?” he whispered.

In answer, she gently worked the towel away from him, spreading it on the floor. Sat upon it. Taking his hands in hers, she kissed each fervently, and drew him down to sit besides her. “Um.” She was biting her lip again and the urge to scold her--perhaps with kisses--rose within him, strong and sharp. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I read this in a book, okay? I-I don’t have any actual experience doing this kind of thing, not even with _him._ ” Her eyes met his, shy as violets, and then she laid down, curling on her side. 

One hand touched his shoulder, brought him gently to the ground alongside her. “Okay.” Her voice wavered; became very fast. “We lie down on our sides, head to foot, and you put your head on my leg and your mouth on me, and I’ll put my mouth on you, and we both do it at the same time. This way, no one’s left out and we don’t have to struggle about who comes first, and everything’s fine.”

Amazement scoured his mind clean. “I. I...ah...” _Fine? My mouth? There? I...I was going to use my fingers as before. My mouth?_ Fire rolled deep in his belly and he clamped his lips upon a moan. _As the Emperor did?_

The memory leapt out at him, shining like a diamond in all its clarity: Ayaka, moaning so beautifully and terribly under the Sword Emperor’s mouth. _I...yes._ Coils moved. _Why should Lucius Tiberius alone have such intimate knowledge of my wife’s body? Why should he be the only one who makes those cries fall from her lips? Yes._ Catching her mouth in a kiss, he sucked her lower lip slowly as his mind whipped through plans, tactics, strategies. _I will attend to her. Distract her. Please her as a husband should, until she falls limp upon my body and bliss has driven all thought of my pleasure away from her mind._

Ayaka whimpered into his mouth and Arthur’s body shook as the small wicked darts of lust pierced him. Shoving the feeling away, he ran his fingers down her side, stroking soft hot skin, tracing fine narrow bones. “My love,” he whispered as their kiss finally broke, “that sounds like a fine plan to me.”

The smile of mingled anxiety and relief she gave him was so beautiful it made his heart drop to his heels. Shyly, carefully, politely they shifted themselves, head to foot, cheek to thigh, mouth to sex. Her breath fanned him, hot as summer; her small fingers were trembling against his skin. Time to start--and they stopped.

Salt was his first dazed impression: salt, a slight tang of musk, the curls before him beaded with dew. His nerveless fingers parted the shielding curls, smoothing them away and to the sides. Lightning filled his eyes and ears, shifted and crackled through each nerve and filament. _Like a flower--like a rose in full bloom, rain-washed in the garden._

_My wife is so beautiful._

Time had quietly withdrawn elsewhere, leaving him gasping in an eternal stillness. _Where do I begin? How do I begin?_ Kisses, certainly, and he knew that the bud was the seat of her pleasure--even _he_ knew that, inexperienced as he was. He found himself wishing, briefly and foolishly, that he had not turned such an indulgently deaf ear to the bawdier stories circulating among his court. _Kisses alone did not cause the ecstasy she was experiencing. Therefore, there must be another--_

Ayaka’s cold wet fingers took hold of him. Stroked him. Tenderly, carefully, she pressed the softest of kisses to his shaft. Paused. Kissed him again, lower this time. Another, lower still. Slow kisses, light as butterflies, but each one lit shuddering flames in his belly. Darkness crested like a wave in his eyes. If she took him in her mouth he would lose himself utterly, die completely to reason, and what came in his place--

 _Concentrate! Concentrate. Remember: this is a battle, albeit a gentle one,_ he told himself when he could finally breathe again. _And one you are losing. Control yourself. Send yourself out of your body, as you have so many times before. Think only of Ayaka’s pleasure and **begin**._

He pressed his lips to her. Salt, clean and bitter, with a faint sweetness curling underneath. Ayaka’s hips twitched in his grasp. A kiss to each soft fold. One to the bud: she was trembling. Trembling, but not stopping, and her kisses were becoming soft laps of her tongue, her fist wrapped firmly around him. Motes of light danced through the air, carrying his mind away with them; frantic, he pulled her into him, until he could barely breathe, and kissed her wildly. 

A sweet little moan, right against his member. Good: he was advancing. He laid a kiss against her entrance and felt her shake; flicked his tongue against the inside of one fold, gathering sweetness with each lick. A pleasant languor began to seep into his bones. Slowly, he worked her other fold with his tongue, wetting it thoroughly, and each lap brought further honey to his tongue as his wife squirmed and whimpered under his mouth. _I could do this for eternity,_ he thought, his mind as insubstantial as a feather cloud. _Is this what he feels when he ministers to us? I begin to understand._

Ayaka’s hand loosened; fell limp to his thigh. He smiled and gently covered every inch of her flower with kisses, boldly leaving the last upon her entrance, sealing it with a flick of his tongue. She gasped, clutched his leg hard enough for him to feel the pinch of her nails, and moaned. “A-Arthur.” Her voice was weak. 

_Call my name again._ Fearlessly, his tongue mapped her and he gloried in each soft cry that dropped from her lips, each new flow of wetness that came to his tongue. _So **wet** , very wet, and all of it for me. Such a delightfully wanton little wife I have._ Her folds were soaked, her entrance dripping, the bud plump and shining with dew. _I’ve made such a mess of you, sweet lady, that it’s only fair for me to clean you up._ Yet the more he cleaned, the more there was for him to clean, pleasure like a dozen swords though his heart, honey drenching his lips and tongue, and his body shaking with Ayaka’s as they moaned.

Breathless and smiling, he circled her entrance with his tongue, brought it up further; paused for a few soft kisses upon her folds. _Here we are._ Beautifully flushed and bedecked with dew; the center of the rose, tender and eager for him. Gently--so gently--he kissed it; moved his tongue against it. Ayaka whimpered, rocking her hips, pushing him further into her. “I have you, my love,” he whispered, and her hands dug into his thighs. Slowly, he licked her, softly kissing and sucking at her bud, delighting in her shaking, her fervent moans. Yes, she was his entirely, his perfect love, pliant and open, enthralled with bliss. He had merely to crook his finger and she would lovingly, slavishly do _anything_ he asked--

_What?_

_“Arthur!”_

Her scream bounced off the walls, splitting and echoing as her hips bucked, her hands clawing at him, and then she fell back against him, graceless and spent.

“Ayaka? Ayaka!” There was no way for him to right himself without toppling her; still, he twisted towards her, frantic with remorse. “Ayaka!” _How could I behave in such a way? How could I think of her in such a way? She trusts me...she loves me...Dear God, could she tell?_

“I’m fine, Arthur.” Ayaka said calmly, and opened her eyes. Her face was wreathed in a shy, content smile. “That was _good._ ” 

His heart skipped five beats, leapt about in his chest, then plummeted. _She...did not notice. Praise God. Yet--_

“But...” Her finger prodded his erection gently and she looked at him with remorseful eyes. “I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain.” Gently, she ran her thumb over the head, gathered white. Slipped it into her mouth and licked it clean as fog shrouded his eyes, blinding him. “Lie back, Arthur.”

“I...I...it’s all right,” he croaked, but her wonderful, inexorable hands had already taken him prisoner and he could no more resist her than he could fly. 

Slowly, she licked him, long strokes from the base to the head, patient and careful. “A-Ayaka.” His voice hitched and tottered; it was so difficult to get enough air to breathe, much less speak. She kissed the head; placed another kiss lower, then lower still. “P-Please be careful...I don’t...I’m not going to last much longer.”

“It’s okay, Arthur,” she whispered. “I have the crystal.” Her tongue, searing hot, circled the base; dipped down to stroke his balls and he moaned. She did it again, then squeezed them delicately in her hand. His gasp became a full-throated cry and his hips arched eagerly towards her, longing for the sweet wet heat of her mouth. _Control, control, control..._

“Almost there?” she murmured, and lapped bitter seed off the head. He buried his face in his hands, and did not answer. He was twitching and pulsing in her hands, her tender, beautiful, wonderful, excruciating hands, but for her sake he could handle this, he could endure--

Soft lips parted and then he was sliding down her throat, all about him hot and sweet. Alarm clutched his heart in hands of burning ice, but all he could do was lie there and moan for her, his thighs open as a whore’s. She was so _tight_ , struggling to take him deeper and deeper, so _good_ , “Ayaka, _please_ \--” 

_I’m fine,_ she said in his mind. _I love you. Don’t worry._ She was not fine; he could feel how he was hurting her, but she was pleasing him through the pain, atoning for earlier, her face solemn with determination, her soft mouth sucking and working at him, and then he was fully sheathed in her, her nose touching his belly.

His hips jerked once before he managed to still them. A great wheel of fire spun and roared within him, devouring his self-control as it danced, urging him to move, to take, to claim, to _fuck_. _Come, I must come, please God let me come before...before..._

It was not God who answered him, but Ayaka, her sweet mouth giving mercy in the shape of a kiss. His mind gladly burnt to atoms and he cried out, cried for Ayaka and himself, as his loving wife moaned around him and drank his seed to the last drop.

 

Afterwards, they rested in the cedar bath, made hot once again by Ayaka’s magic. She lay clean and quiet and half-dreaming on his chest, one hand over his heart. Her foot gently stroked his. 

_At least she is happy. That is all that truly matters._ Let her be rested and content; let him be tired, and worn, and more than a little heartsick. _I was fortunate this time, but God help me if it turns out that I must protect Ayaka from myself as well as everything else,_ he thought with bitter pain. _My wife deserves better than this._ Loving intimacy such as they now shared; that was what he should be giving her and nothing else. _Yet I have been tainting love with lust. Who knew that within me lurked such monstrous desires? Control. For Ayaka’s sake, I must strengthen my control._

“Arthur?”

“Mmm?” Was her voice still a little hoarse? He’d insisted on honey wine and a healing spell for her throat, and made Ayaka swear never to hurt herself in pursuit of his pleasure again, a promise secured only after much grumbling on her part.

“Please,” he’d said quietly. “You suffering on my behalf is anathema to me.” _It should be the other way around._

The stubborn look had faded from her face, leaving it tender. “I promise,” she had whispered, and sealed it with a kiss.

Now, she gifted him another kiss, then folded her arms across his chest, resting her chin in the crook of her elbows. “Are you all right? You’re really quiet.”

He smiled back at her. “I’m fine. Simply tired.” 

A grimace crossed her mouth. “I guess we should head back to bed then. It is getting late.” She sighed, paddling her feet in the water, and made another face. “Do I really have to sleep squashed between you and Lucius Tiberius again?”

Gently, he smoothed her bangs away from her eyes. Her beautiful eyes, blue as the heavens. “I’m sorry. I know it’s uncomfortable, but it really is safer to have you between us.” Ayaka muttered something he couldn’t quite catch. “Pardon?”

Her lips pinched together. “I said he gropes me. In his sleep, the perverted bastard! I checked! He wasn’t faking it; he really was asleep! What’s wrong with him?”

 _Speaking of monstrous lust._ “He is not a man who has ever had to hold his impulses in check,” he replied, and felt a hot thread of anger twist inside him. “If he bothers you again, you can sleep next to the wall and I will place myself between you and the Emperor.” 

“No, it’s fine,” she mumbled. “Like you said, it’s safer between you.” She looked across the room to the table where their nightclothes rested, brought along with the honey wine. “But once this war is won, he’s sleeping under the bed.”

 

Hand in hand, they went back to where the Emperor was waiting for them.

Light showed around the edges of the massive doors that marked their bedroom. Arthur had known better than to hope that Lucius Tiberius would be asleep, yet he couldn’t repress a frown. _He best not be expecting to resume where we left off._

“Let’s get this over with,” Ayaka grumbled, and flung the door open to reveal a robe-clad Lucius Tiberius stretched out in their bed, a thick book propped up on one thigh.

Calmly, the Emperor turned a page, then looked up and smiled at them. “About time. Been having fun, you two? I was about to dispatch a search party.” 

Arthur blinked. Ayaka was perfectly still, her eyes wide with surprise. “What the--Since when do _you_ wear glasses?”

“Huh? Shit!” Suddenly crimson, Lucius Tiberius snatched the wire-rims off, shoving them into the night table drawer and slamming it shut. “Forgot I was wearing them, hah.” 

Ayaka’s hands fumbled with her own glasses, pushing them back up on her nose. “Why’d you take them off? You think there’s something wrong with wearing glasses?” Her voice rose with each word. “You do! Admit it!”

“No! Nothing’s wrong,” he said quickly. “It’s just...not a warrior thing, understand? And I’ve only been wearing them for the last few months, so I’m not really used to them yet...” His voice trailed off and a flash of bitterness crossed his face.“I only need to wear them if I’m doing a lot of close work,” he continued after a moment. “Perils of old age, and all that. Right, Arthur?” His grin was sour.

Ayaka’s eyes narrowed. “Arthur’s only twenty-five, you know. That’s nothing in this day and age. That he could do all those great things despite being so young--” The look she turned on him was full of love. “Just shows what a wonderful person he is. Some people get to be forty and don’t do as much.” Her voice was just shy of mocking.

His cheeks grew hot. “Really, I only did what was needed,” he murmured, and mentally added: _Please don’t provoke him._

The Emperor looked at them in silence, then transferred his slanted grin to Ayaka. “Oh? Well, if doing great things by twenty-five is a sign of magnificence, then you’ve only got four years left yourself, lovely. Better get started, since you’re pretty far behind the mark, aren’t you? Marriage doesn’t count.”

Ayaka turned a brilliant red, and anger cut into Arthur's heart. “Lucius Tiberius--” 

“I guess Arthur hasn’t mentioned that we’re exactly the same age, has he, darling? Though, I am an hour older,” the Emperor continued, ignoring him. “Born on the same day and everything. Soulmates.” His smirk deepened. 

The flush was quickly fading from Ayaka’s cheeks, leaving her pale and subdued. “What? Are you serious? _You’re_ only twenty-five too? Born on Arthur’s birthday?” The forlorn note in her voice made him squeeze her hand “I..ah...you really don’t look it. I thought you were...in your thirties at least, or something.” 

Lucius Tiberius stretched, yawned, placed his book aside. “Oh, yes. Only twenty-five. And by twenty-five I had revitalized my empire, conquered a hundred countries and turned their rulers into my subjects and allies, fought and defeated challenger after challenger, beast after beast--and that’s just a fraction of the things I’ve done. If I were to list them all, we’d never sleep tonight.” He tilted his head. His eyes were watching Ayaka, but Arthur felt that Lucius Tiberius’s attention was truly on him. “Who knows what I might have gone on to do if...well, you know.”

“You were the one seeking an obedience that you did not deserve, Lucius Tiberius,” he said, low and soft, and very, very angry. “ _Enough._ Ayaka needs rest that she is not getting. If you wish to win this war with the two of us alive, I suggest you desist for the present.”

The Emperor lowered his eyes and Arthur felt a brief burst of satisfaction. “You’re right, love. I’m not being very nice.” He looked up again, his grin smaller, and tight. “Marriage is harder than I’d thought. But I guess it’s not realistic to have everything smooth and settled five days in, is it?” He patted the mattress besides him.”Come here, darling. A kiss to say I’m sorry, and then to sleep.”

Ayaka did not move. Anxiety began to seep within him, while Lucius Tiberius looked puzzled, and increasingly annoyed. _Ayaka._ She remained still. _Beloved, what are you doing?_

“Put your glasses back on,” she finally said. Her stare looked as though it could cut the Sword Emperor in two. “Then you’ll get your kiss.”

Looking mystified, the Emperor retrieved his glasses from the drawer and slipped them back on. “Satisfied?”

“Mmm.” Frowning, she released Arthur’s hand and walked slowly towards the bed. The instant her knee touched the mattress the Emperor took hold of her arm, and pulled her up onto his lap. “Hey!”

“Hey yourself,” he retorted, and kissed her.

Or, rather, tried to. There was an audible _clunk_ as their glasses rammed into each other, blocking Lucius Tiberius’s mouth from Ayaka’s, and Arthur was seized with a dreadful urge to laugh. “Wait a minute--” 

“Turn your head--no, the other way--” 

“Ow! You’re squashing my nose!”

“Sorry!”

 _“Here.”_ Ayaka’s hands pulled at the Emperor’s face, tilting it towards her as she came down from above, and, finally, brought her lips to his.

Arthur looked away.

The soft wet sounds of lips and tongues meeting. His nails bit into his palm. A deep kiss, a long kiss. He flicked a glance at them from the corner of his eye: still at it, Ayaka straddling the Emperor’s lap. One hand snaked under Ayaka’s top and he forced his eyes away again, rage pulsing dully within.

Smothered laughter. Arthur whipped around to see Lucius Tiberius triumphantly holding Ayaka’s glasses in one hand, his own still perched firmly upon his nose as she jerked away from him. “Give them back!”

“You don’t need them. It’s bedtime.” Grinning, he took off his glasses as well, and shut both pairs back into the drawer as he easily, playfully parried Ayaka’s attempts to retrieve them. “That just about made up for snatching Arthur away from me earlier, sweetheart; thank you. Speaking of Arthur...” The Emperor’s eyes met his. “Coming, love?”

A great weariness was pressing into him, turning his bones to lead. _Not at the moment, praise God._ Quietly, he nodded and made his way over to the bed, sliding in next to a still fuming Ayaka; quietly, he accepted Lucius Tiberius’s eager kiss and the hands sliding down his body to stroke his rear.

The Emperor’s tongue danced with his; then he pulled away, smiling, and caressed Arthur’s face. “Rest well, my love,” he said softly. “You too, sweetheart. Tomorrow, we have a party to plan and more hunting to do. Let’s show Lancer and his bitchy Master the true splendor of Rome.” He yawned. Snapped the light off. “Good night.”

“Sleep well,” he replied softly.

“Night,” Ayaka muttered.

In the darkness, he pulled Ayaka to him and she immediately wrapped her arms around him, nestling against his heart. He inhaled her sweet scent, finer than any rose, then kissed the top of her head, very gently, and closed his eyes.

Could she feel his heart pounding, so close to her own? Probably. _I will not fail you,_ he vowed. _No matter what, I shall keep you safe from everything that threatens you._

_Even if that ends up including myself._

A soft noise that might have been a snort of laughter, and then Lucius Tiberius’s hands were on his hips, drawing them gently and inescapably towards him, until Ayaka’s back rested against the Emperor’s chest, and his long arms encircled them both.

 _See!_ Ayaka snarled in his mind. _Pervert! Incorrigible pervert!_

 _I know,_ he replied, bitter and tired and faintly (very faintly) ruefully amused. _Semperque Lucius Tiberius._

Defiantly, she hugged him tighter and he embraced her more closely in turn. _I will strive to be the husband you deserve,_ he thought as Ayaka drifted off to sleep in his arms and he settled down to wait out the long night. _When the Emperor gives you lust, I shall return love and if the world turns against you, I will be always at your side._

_Always._

Darkness spread its wings over him softly, and he slipped into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> now i will write fluff.
> 
> in this chapter: arthur discovers he has an actual libido and it TERRIFIES him.
> 
> arthur: no! how dare i desire my wife! what will she think of me?
> 
> ayaka: taaaaaake me already, SHEESH.
> 
> i love arthur and ayaka so why *pounds fists* are they *pounds fists* so damned difficult to write?
> 
> oh, i know: it's because arthur is super goddamned repressed and sex scenes with him are like pulling teeth! arthur--this is why you keep going alter every time you want to have sex that isn't the most tender vanilla sex on the planet. ayaka wants you to bang her. very hard. she likes that. it's okay.
> 
> if my latin's wrong, please tell, because it's been years and i'm sure i've forgotten a bunch of things.
> 
> sorry this took so long, but between fgo events (hi bb-chan) and arthur being repressed i just. had. so much trouble with this. you would not believe how many scenes were originally planned, then cut. normally i have a pretty good idea of how things will go but this one went alllll over the place. the ending was originally very different and much angstier. a flashback to morgan raping arthur was also cut because of angst and it not really fitting in well. other things were changed. it was nuts.
> 
> yeah, arthur, you'll need to protect ayaka from yourself, but not in the way you think. heh.
> 
> true shocking plot twist of this chapter: lucius tiberius needs to wear reading glasses.
> 
> "glasses aren't a warrior thing": lol, tell that to sigurd.
> 
> so, you know how i mentioned back in where the fever lies that i had a really great idea for the archer in this war since it's not proto gil?
> 
> well, my archer was WILLIAM TELL, and i am so damned mad now that i didn't write something about him then, because the fgo version is almost exactly like i pictured my version. tbh, i i didn't picture him with an eyepatch, but blond rugged-looking older man ? hell fucking yes. mine had the ability, that, as long as he knew where his target was, he could strike it, even if he fired from like miles away, or up at the sky or in a completely different direction from them: the arrow would fly at the target no matter what. so not exactly the same as fgo tell's ability, but reasonably close. damn. why the hell didn't i say something then?


End file.
